


Batgirl: The Grand Premiere

by Warlock of Talk (warlock_of_talk)



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, Drama, Dubious Consent, Embarrassment, Emotional Porn, F/F, Heist, Human Trafficking, Humiliation, Naked Female Clothed Male, Orgy, Power Exchange, Sensual Play, Thriller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:14:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 44,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23057557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warlock_of_talk/pseuds/Warlock%20of%20Talk
Summary: Barbara Gordon is hunting for Catwoman, a mysterious new thief in Gotham who has stolen a notebook full of valuable information on Batman. But as Catwoman lures her into a situation that will utterly humiliate her, Barbara will have to decide how far she’s willing to go to protect herself… and what she’s willing to do.
Relationships: Barbara Gordon/Dick Grayson, Barbara Gordon/Selina Kyle, Batgirl/Robin (DCU)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 33





	1. The Red Carpet

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfiction for AO3! Thanks in advance for everyone who reads. New chapters will come every few days.
> 
> The story is loosely inspired by a run of Batman Confidential #17-21 entitled “The Cat and the Bat” in which Batgirl meets Catwoman for the first time. It’s also my honest attempt at making a good Batgirl/Catwoman story arc with well-defined characters first, and lewdness second. Expect a slow burn that stays hot for a while once it gets started. Despite the tags, nothing gets terribly dark.
> 
> All main characters are based on a mixture of different parts of their source material that I like, including elements from the comics, Arkham series, DCEU films, and various shows. Overall, expect familiar faces: a gung-ho, headstrong Batgirl; a wily, sultry Catwoman; and a wisecracking, honorable Robin. They're all exploring a Gotham City that's more dangerous than any of them truly know, and none of them will be the same with what they find.
> 
> Thanks in advance for reading! Kudos or comment if you enjoyed.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Batgirl and Robin stalk Catwoman, and learn some important lessons about her.

_ "So, remind me... why are we after Catwoman again?" _ Dick’s distant voice whispered.

"For the last time, stop asking, Dick! We just have to find this notebook," Barbara replied over the comm-link piped into her cowl.

_ "Hey, don't use real names over comms!" _ Dick warned. His reply was predictably hushed and nervous.

"I didn't,  _ Dick, _ " she hissed back, immediately regretting how short she sounded with him.

_ "Oh, ha-ha, Batgirl," _ he said in a hushed groan. He knew she swung the double-entendre of his name around when she was either cheeky or nervous. It was obvious which one it was right now, and it had been all night.

_ "Alright, you've told me there's a notebook," _ Dick began again a bit more gently.  _ "I could just really use something more to go on here." _

"It's just... it's personal, okay? We have to find it!" Barbara said.

She squinted through her binoculars as Dick prowled past a long, beautiful patio window inside Catwoman's safehouse.  _ Dist: 316m  _ blinked in yellow digital text on the scope's integrated display. He gazed out in the general direction where he knew she'd be watching from afar, shrugged, and shot a coy smirk.

_ "Suit yourself," _ he whispered as he stalked off again, opening drawers and running his gloves over surfaces, searching for possible seams of hidden compartments.

Dick Grayson was many things to Barbara Gordon. First and foremost, he was a friend. Probably the closest one she had in the world, in fact. They'd developed that bond through their strange, secret union with the being they formerly called The Batman, someone who they'd both since learned was so much more than just a myth haunting Gotham's skies. Their intense mental and physical regimen under his tutelage also included various exercises in trust meant to root out any doubts and fears they had about each other and themselves. She'd shared more vulnerable secrets with Dick than she had with her own family.

As newly-minted disciples of Bruce Wayne's secret task force, Barbara also came to know Dick as a fighter, and a highly talented one at that. He was a gymnast in his past life, and didn't have the same instinct for combat that she did, but he was a fast learner, and would outpace her someday soon. Flying through the air on a trapeze and fighting were different languages with the same grammar to him. And through those two aspects — friend and fighter — Barbara knew Dick Grayson as a teammate. Someone who would have her back no matter what, against all odds, in any situation. No questions asked.

This time, though, he was asking a lot of questions.

The frigid night breeze dragged cold fingertips through Barbara’s crimson hair while Dick crept across the cone of vision in her binoculars. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she was definitely stretching the limits of his trust by bringing him in on this mission. Cold, midnight mist sighed nervously past her lips at the thought, and she lowered the binoculars. Another busy Gotham City night unfolded beneath her overwatch point atop the Clarefield building. A sweeping granite branch jutted out from the skyscraper's gaudy art deco crown a thousand feet above street level, and she crouched at its tip, patiently keeping a lookout. She felt like a bird sitting on a giant stone tree and watching ants busily work the concrete soil below. Gotham, for all its grime and sin, was a strangely beautiful city. For a moment, that thought made her forget her nerves.

And this, of course, gave her just long enough to feel the unfiltered shame at stringing Dick along without telling him anything. He deserved the explanation he wanted. He was her teammate, after all, and a damned good one for going in blind. That probably made Barbara a bad one. She pressed a finger to the base of her cowl's long, pointy ear, reactivating the mic.

"Hey. Sorry," she said. "I'm... yeah. I'm sorry."

_ "I know," _ Dick replied patiently. In the scope, his lips mouthed the words just before his voice spoke in the audio feed.  _ "Just trying to be a good partner, you know?" _

"Ouch," Barbara said, rolling her eyes as she refocused the tech binoculars. "Yeah, I deserve that."

_ "Almost as much as I deserve an explanation," _ he quipped with a smile. She watched through the scope as Dick hesitated at a doorway, second guessing himself. Catwoman, a particularly paranoid thief, left traps for other sticky fingers and curious eyes in most of her safehouses. Barbara smiled as Dick stepped carefully over a tripwire, and down the next corridor. There was nobody she'd rather have with her for this mission.

"I do owe you one, after we're done here," Barbara said. "I'll explain everything. And I'll take point on the next safehouse if this one's cold."

_ "That's very nice of you," _ he replied,  _ "something a good teammate would do." _

Barbara rolled her eyes. "You  _ really _ know how to milk it, huh?" she chuckled.

_ "Mmm! Milk?" _ a voice echoed over her shoulder. Barbara whirled and tensed her body instinctively.

A towering, silky silhouette wrapped in purple and black stood just out of reach behind her. Hands rested delicately on curvaceous hips, and deep red lips smiled in the moonlight. Another breeze swept the top of the towering building.

"Cats  _ love _ milk," purred Catwoman.

Barbara’s hand flew from the microphone button, ejecting the Batarang from the emergency spring-holster under her wrist before she even realized she’d done it. The polished metal sparkled in the night. "Where is it?" she growled at the thief.

She'd spent days preparing for this moment with Catwoman — poring over her case file on the cave's computer, studying her crime scenes, learning her patterns. Now the time had come, only it was on Catwoman’s terms. It unnerved Barbara that she'd been snuck up on so easily.

"Where's  _ what _ , sweetie?" Catwoman asked. Her voice was syrupy and coy, and she casually caressed her own curves as she drew her hands to her hips. "I put  _ a lot _ of things in  _ a lot _ of places."

Barbara's eyes instinctively studied Catwoman's body language. She was calm: gloved arms akimbo, so no weapons in-hand; knees stiff, so not about to attack or pounce. The whip she kept was neatly wrapped around her waist like a belt, and she casually cocked a hip to the side. Her outfit offered a glance of deep cleavage just above the jumpsuit zipper to anyone who cared to look. She was relaxed, and barely even looking at Barbara. It was as though she wasn't interesting enough.

"I'm warning you," Barbara said, standing slowly from her crouch.

"Oh  _ Batgirl. _ Funny thing!" she mocked. "I'm warning you too."

Relaxed. Barely even looking at Barbara — looking at the safehouse.

Suddenly, in Catwoman's palm, a small handheld detonator appeared.

"Wait!" Barbara cried. Catwoman thumbed open the detonator's trigger guard.  _ 'Explosives Use' _ wasn't in her dossier. Panic chilled Barbara's veins.

"I really liked that place, you know?" Catwoman sighed. "You guys owe me one."

_ "Hey, know what else a good teammate would owe me?" _ Dick's voice asked secretly over the comm-link, his words somehow mirroring Catwoman's. Barbara's hand shivered a bit as she stared at the button in Catwoman's hand and wondered if this was the last thing she'd ever hear Dick say.  _ "A big cup of coffee after we tak—" _

_ "—Robin, get out! Evac, evac!"  _ Barbara screamed in terror over the mic. Then, she wound up, and threw the Batarang.

It flew in a wide, curved arc toward Catwoman, one that'd be harder to dodge. She practiced this throw at least a hundred times every day, and she was confident that the knife would bury into Catwoman's forearm, disarming her. The wind seemed to hold its breath for the blade. It was a flash in the moonlit night.

Catwoman simply turned a shoulder and snatched it out of the air with her free hand. Barbara's eyes bloomed.

_ "Tick-tick-boom!" _ Catwoman sang, pressing the trigger on her detonator.

A flicker like lightning split the night open from behind Barbara, and a few moments after, a resounding, thunderous  _ boom _ . At Catwoman’s safehouse, a massive ball of fire crashed through the same window where Barbara had watched Dick shrug and smirk at her. Glass and debris rained down from the sudden storm Catwoman had unleashed from Gotham's midnight sky. Screams of terror floated up from the street as pedestrians scrambled for shelter. Barbara's heartbeat pounded in her ears, and she dropped her binoculars in shock.

"Hope Bird-Boy made it!" Catwoman cackled from behind her.

Barbara growled and whirled around with balled fists just in time to see the kick that shoved her from the rooftop.

She had trained on the mat for years before she'd even heard tales of a nightmare bat flying through the city. The daughter of a cop had to know how to fight, and she knew from many painful lessons just how to rebound from an unexpected kick: knees soft, stomach tight, exhale on contact. She kept her weight on her heels, ready to roll back rather than resist while she sucked down the pain. Barbara had hit the ground hard countless times, and she'd always stood back up. The ground would be much further away this time, and she'd hit much, much harder.

Batman's training regimen included keeping a ready hand on the amazing, military-grade ziplining tool he'd designed, and Barbara was especially grateful for it now. Instead of trying to resist Catwoman's push kick, she let the momentum carry her out and away from the building, and even jumped with it to soften the blow. In another moment, fine-tuned over hundreds of rehearsals, she felt for the Batclaw's pistol grip on her belt, locked it to her wrist, and fired a zipline as she somersaulted in freefall. The rope connected right where she wanted — directly under the outcropping she'd been kicked from — and Barbara swung.

Gathering her focus, she traced a wide arc underneath, then pulled the retractor button to gain momentum, turning all her downward fall into an upward swoop. She hit the Batclaw's release as she sailed up over the Clarefield building's vaulted perch just in time to see Catwoman bounding off across the roof.

And just in time to realize she'd vastly overshot her swing.

She was quite high up now, and she'd been counting on that to get a good look at where Catwoman was going — it'd just worked far too well. Her arms extended reflexively to use her cape to glide, but it wasn't enough. She tumbled and skidded clumsily onto the rooftop as she came down, and groaned as she pulled herself to her feet.

_ Glad Catwoman didn't see that, _ she thought to herself.  _ Or Batman. Or... _

"Robin, come in!" she yelped as she keyed the microphone in her cowl, remembering suddenly.

No reply. Barbara blinked away an image of her dead teammate.

"Robin!"

_ "I'm out!" _ his coughing voice replied. Barbara glanced at the plumes of smoke belching from the safehouse window.  _ "I'm out. Thanks for the early warning." _

"Oh thank God," she sighed as she fell to one knee. "I'm so sorry! Oh God, I'm so—"

_ "—Don't be. Let me guess — Catwoman was watching?" _

Barbara watched as the purple and black silhouette pranced acrobatically to the next rooftop. "Yeah," she said. "Closely. Are you okay?"

_ "I'm fine, I'll run damage control and catch up," _ he explained.  _ "There'll be a lot of debris and scared people on the street." _

"You sure?" Barbara asked, rising to her feet.

_ "Yes! Go!" _ he shouted.

Barbara sprung to a sprint that rattled her voice as she ran back to her outcropping to gather up her binoculars. "Stay out of sight and do what you can. I'm so sorry!"

_ "Stop apologizing and go!" _ Robin said.  _ "We lose her and this was all for nothing!" _

"Not a problem," Barbara said, dashing to the ledge of the rooftop as she caught sight of a grapple point for her next zipline. "I know where she's going."

* * *

Barbara had been appearing in the Gotham night skies as Batgirl for a few months now. Of all the things about being Batgirl that she loved, seeing the city flow beneath her like a river of rock and steel was definitely in the top five. She wondered if even Bruce could ignore how exhilarating it was to zipline to a building, sail toward it, turn the momentum skyward, and take off flying into the night. She felt powerful and free, like a bird of prey. Every flight was just as amazing as the first.

This was one amongst many of the amazing things she'd learned from Batman during her time with him, things they just didn't teach in university-level criminology classes or at the police academy. The fundamentals — work the case, follow the clues, let the answer reveal itself — had brought her most of the way here. But one distinct Batman-specific lesson that Barbara remembered now was the way he characterized criminals into flowcharts of predictable behaviors depending on what traits they exhibited. Catwoman, a particular sort of thief, was all about the show; she lived for the attention. She didn't want to be caught and imprisoned, of course, but she wanted everyone to know this stolen gem or that missing money was her doing.

Naturally, Batman would call this part of his hunt  _ 'The Red Carpet' _ .

It definitely wasn't  _ 'The Chase' _ — that was a haphazard, desperate dash to an escape route.  _ 'The Red Carpet'  _ was more of a strut for publicity and admiration. Usually the perp appeared in dramatic fashion: a daytime bank robbery with cash fluttering in the wind, or a very public series of murders. Maybe an explosion in a downtown highrise apartment. Something that let them show off their style while everybody gawked. Then, they'd flee through a very carefully rehearsed escape route and make as much of a spectacle of the pursuit itself as possible. It was all about being seen, and then still getting away.

Catwoman had managed to elude Barbara once or twice, vanishing around an unexpected blind turn or a quick drop over a tall building. But never for long, though. Barbara always picked up her trail. What was more, Catwoman wasn't trying to lose someone tailing her; she knew she was being followed, and she was enjoying it. Even though the stakes were high, Barbara couldn't help but feel exhilarated too.

_ "Still got her?" _ Dick's voice asked, emergency sirens echoing distantly in the night against the audio feed.

"Yeah. We're halfway across downtown and she's barely even winded," Barbara remarked as she sailed. "Status?"

_ "No casualties. Lots of debris, but only minor injuries on the ground. Made a couple of quiet rescues. We got lucky, or Catwoman wasn't trying to do much damage. Building's being evacuated now." _

"Good. What about you?" Barbara blinked away the bite of shame she felt from letting him put himself in danger. It should have been her in there, not him.

_ "I'm fine," _ he replied, his practiced nonchalance masking the smoke inhalation in his voice.  _ "Could have scored a concussion from the airburst, but what else is new? Please tell me you've still got eyes on Catwoman." _

Barbara winced at the thought of her teammate hurt or worse. If he was bleeding out right now, would he even say so? Probably not. She needed to end this _. _ Beneath her flight path, the thief vaulted effortlessly over a series of ventilation ducts before finally trotting to a stop on a quiet rooftop.

"Still got her. Okay, her cardio is  _ insanely _ good," she remarked.

_ "I'll make sure to suggest to the Boss that we search all the county's gyms for her ID card," _ Dick joked.

"Funny," she said. "But not a bad idea. Listen, Dick... I'm going in, you're staying back."

_ "Wait, what?" _ Dick said, seriousness suddenly weighing on his tone.  _ "No, you heard what Batman said when taking on the heavy hitters." _

Barbara found Dick's voice trailing away as Catwoman unzipped a small shoulder bag and produced a leather notebook. Her heart pounded, and she pulled her scope from her belt and boosted the zoom magnification. An embossed silver GCPD logo on the notebook's cover flashed in the moonlight, and in intimately familiar handwriting, Barbara saw a name written on the front:

James Gordon.

"I've got eyes on the prize," Barbara said with utter satisfaction at the sight of her father's notebook. "You're hurt, and I'm on top of her right now. We're one takedown away from a trip to the infirmary for you."

_ "Please don't do this solo," _ Dick urged.

"You're hurt. I'm not."

_ "I'm fine!" _ said Dick as he stifled a cough.  _ "Stand by! We need to team up on this one. Or call Batman. She's dangerous!" _

"Negative on both," Barbara replied. "I can hear the smoke damage in your lungs right now. I'm ending this."

_ "It's a two man job!" _

"Or a one woman job," Barbara said confidently. "Stand by. Batgirl out."

_ "Barb, wa—" _

_ Heavy hitters, _ Barbara scoffed to herself as she pressed the silence button hidden in her cowl and planned her zip to Catwoman's rooftop.  _ You've gotta be kidding me, Dick. _ Whoever Catwoman was, she was clever, but she was small-time. She wasn't a metahuman — Batman's research had concluded that beyond all doubt. She didn't have an army of mobsters like the Falcone family, or an altered physiology like Waylon Jones. Catwoman was just what her name implied: one woman in a slutty costume. How heavy of a hitter could she really be?

Between Dick's injuries and an exploded luxury apartment, there was some collateral damage Barbara would have to account for, but with little more than instinct and legwork, she’d tracked down the mysterious thief who they were calling  _ 'Catwoman.' _ It had occurred to her more than once to call Batman when she'd realized Catwoman had stolen the GCPD notebook, but this was more than personal. Taking down a minor cat burglar with a stolen intelligence asset would prove the city was safe with Batgirl even when Batman wasn't stalking through the night with her. She owed it to Bruce and her father to close this up without putting their secrets at risk.

Barbara coasted silently down from her perch, gliding on the slight updraft that most buildings had in the negative space between them. The best way to end fights was before they could start, and Barbara excelled at the direct overhead takedown that she'd used many times before on targets much bigger than Catwoman.

The thief sauntered around the blind corner of a rooftop stairwell, and Barbara scowled as she accelerated her dive. She settled for a quick landing to make an ambush on foot, and aimed for a spot a short distance away. Hundreds of hours of practice let her muscles act without thought: toe rolled to heel and spine coiled softly as she settled behind Catwoman and let her cape mask the sound of the landing. Quiet as a mouse, Barbara stalked to the corner that Catwoman had turned. Naturally, no one was there.

Anticipating the whistle of the whip to come from behind, Barbara faked turning the corner and instead did an artful cartwheel in the other direction, one both for show and function. The overhead whip strike left a loud, harmless  _ crack _ echoing in the space where Barbara wasn't, and Catwoman strolled out from her ambush position, applauding mockingly. She'd circled around behind Barbara in the space of a few heartbeats. It was an unsettling thought, but it was all for nothing.

_ "Oh, very cute!" _ purred Catwoman as she recoiled her whip in a practiced flourish, wrapping it around the hourglass of her waist. "Why, with those moves and that sexy outfit, you're a  _ shoe-in _ for the cheerleading squad, kiddo."

"It’s over, Catwoman," Barbara warned, producing a trio of Batarangs from her belt.

"Ooh, I like the name!" she replied in a voice dripping with fake admiration. "I was just going with what the news gave me, but  _ 'Alley Cat' _ sounds so... sleazy.  _ 'Catwoman!' _ I'm stealing that, too."

"What makes you think you can get away with steali—"

"—Hey,  _ nice recovery _ on the rooftop earlier, by the way," Catwoman said, ignoring her. "Although I don't think you really stuck the landing afterward.  _ Ouch." _

Memories flickered in Barbara's mind from what little they had of Catwoman's profile on the cave's supercomputer:  _ 'Extremely Manipulative' _ ,  _ 'Narcissistic' _ ,  _ 'Highly Intelligent' _ . Catwoman looked like a ridiculous slut in her outfit, but that truly was the disguise: she excelled at stalking her opponents while they stared at her cleavage, then finding their weaknesses and pouncing on them while they were distracted.

With less than a few minutes of ever having been face to face with her, Catwoman already knew the easiest way directly under Barbara's skin: capability. The thought that she wasn't good enough — that she was an impostor. One that certainly didn't belong next to The Batman.

"The notebook, Catwoman," Barbara said.

"This landing was way better. I get it — you were nervous, what with me kicking you off the roof and all."

_ "The notebook, Catwoman," _ she grumbled again, ignoring the jab. Barbara knew what Catwoman was doing, and seethed anyway.

"What'll you give me in return?" Catwoman asked.

Barbara counted criminal charges on her Batarang tips: "Felony explosives possession and detonation. Reckless endangerment. Attempted murder. I’d say at least two life sente—"

"— _ Murder? _ You mean to say I  _ defended myself _ against two  _ masked vigilantes _ breaking and entering on my private property by activating my security system right bef—"

"—curity system?! How the hell do you call an explosive trap a securi—"

"— _ right before _ they ignited a gas line, and  _ destroyed _ my home!"

"Why am I arguing with you?" Barbara wondered aloud, squeezing her fistful of Batarangs more tightly.

"Look, Little Black Riding Hood," Catwoman began, " _ you're _ a public menace,  _ I'm _ a public menace. If your boss has told you anything about me, it's that the only difference between us is that  _ I know it _ ."

"Very poetic. The notebook, Catwoman," Barbara said yet again. She'd lost count of how many warnings she'd given.

"You know, I haven't even bothered reading it yet?" Catwoman said, strolling a circle as she twirled her whip's handle like a vaudeville dancer spinning a cane. "I'm not a big  _ Gotham Herald Best-Seller List  _ kind of girl."

"Then give it here before I have to take it."

_ "Aww," _ Catwoman pouted mockingly at Barbara's threat. "Well just because  _ I don't like it _ doesn't mean somebody else won't, though. Who wouldn't want to pay big money for the Batman's Bat-Plans?"

Barbara tensed as she circled opposite Catwoman, waiting for an attack. The slow, sultry runway strut of her gait made her body language hard to read. "Should I know what the hell that's supposed to mean?" Barbara said.

Catwoman was giggling to herself before Barbara's cheap bluff was even finished. "Oh  _ come on _ . I know this thing doesn't belong to you, either. You think I don't know Commissioner Copstache and the Big Bad Bat have little meetups and compare notes? I'm Cat- _ Woman _ , sweetie. Not Cat- _ Girl _ ."

Barbara burned inside, and Catwoman seemed to glow in the hate. She was like an experienced nurse who could always find the best vein to draw blood from. "The notebook, Catwoman," Barbara said through gritted teeth. "Final warning."

"How'd you find me, anyway?" Catwoman wondered, ignoring her still as they circled. "I know I lost you earlier."

"You did," Barbara said, smiling her own devilish smile for once. "But I already know this is your base of operations."

Catwoman's brow furrowed, and she rolled her eyes, suddenly realizing what Barbara had done. "You've been  _ tailing me here!  _ Didn't know I had a secret admirer."

Another valuable Batman lesson: sometimes letting the bad guys "get away" gives away more than an interrogation would. Barbara knew — at least, up until the highrise explosion — that Catwoman was mostly harmless. The things she stole were expensive, but easily identifiable, and therefore easy to recover. She often dealt in stolen cash and gems, most of which were insured. She could be allowed to roam free, at least for a while. With the notebook on the line, that time was over.

Only Batman had ever met Catwoman face to face until now, and his notes on those encounters were cryptic, so Barbara had to do her own hunting. Batgirl got lucky and managed to witness two separate Catwoman robberies. Rather than swoop in and strike (regardless of how badly as she wanted to) she simply watched, and learned. To Barbara, it was a minor footnote that Bruce forbade her from engaging; the research could be just as valuable, she decided.

And true enough, after both thefts, Catwoman circled back to a single location — the building they were standing atop right now. For Barbara, this was a delicious payoff.

"Guess you're not as sneaky as you think you are," she chided.

"Guess not," agreed Catwoman, waiting. "What are you going to do about it?"

Clouds of white smoke wafted up from ventilation exhausts, and an ambulance's distant wail interrupted the silence between them. A flock of pigeons peppered dark shadows against the moon. Catwoman waited. Barbara wound up, charged, and threw.

None of the Batarangs were on target, but they weren't meant to be; she just needed the knives to force Catwoman into a dodge that Barbara could exploit. She did dodge, and Barbara did strike, but the instantaneous heavy snap kick from Catwoman that Barbara had to struggle to block let her know that there was no exploiting this opponent. Her forearm stung through her gauntlet bracer. Barbara cursed herself for letting her desire to get in a fight cloud her caution, and heard a memory of Batman’s voice whisper something in her ear about underestimating opponents.

Following the momentum, Catwoman moved in and peppered Barbara with a fast combination of kicks and punches. They didn’t immediately register as any sort of martial art that Barbara knew, but all the fundamentals were there: attack without overreaching, defend vital organs and pressure points. But as she stormed into Barbara’s space without fear, Barbara recognized the eagerness. She faked one counterpunch and threw a different one, catching Catwoman completely off-guard, and following with a quick knee to the stomach that left the thief stumbling back.  _ Underestimation goes both ways, _ Barbara thought, projecting the words through her eyes. Catwoman smiled as if she’d heard, and moved in to attack again.

They traded crosses and slips, kicks and dodges, all of them empty as far as Barbara could tell. Suddenly, Catwoman threw a vicious cross-counter to Barbara's lightest jab, threatening to take her head off with one swing. Barbara's mind swam, struggling to find a pattern and failing — Catwoman was, if not highly skilled, a completely unpredictable fighter. Her posture and body language made sense right up until it didn't, and her face seemed to twist between narrow-eyed murder and glib flirtatiousness in an instant. Suddenly,  _ 'Heavy Hitter' _ made a lot more sense. They both disengaged after a few tense exchanges. 

"Been a long time since anyone actually managed to hit me," Catwoman said, breathing heavily. "You'll never be as good in a fight as your boss, but you're damn good!"

"He's not my boss," growled Barbara, recovering as well. "We're a team."

_ "'Kay!" _ Catwoman said coyly, casually running a hand along the curves of her thigh. "Where's your  _ 'team' _ now, hmm?"

"Batman's on the way," Barbara lied. "Robin, too. Told me to keep you busy before they got here."

Catwoman huffed as though she'd heard an unfunny joke. "No, they didn't. If they did, they'll find what's left of you, I guess. See, I haven't even shown you my  _ Tiger Style _ yet." With that, Catwoman lazily lifted a hand to the moonlight as though admiring her fingernails. Five viciously sharp metallic claws ejected from each digit with a gentle, synchronized  _ click _ .

Barbara had read about the claw gauntlets in Catwoman's case file, and she hoped the thief didn't see her flinch before the gun oil and gym sweat in Barbara's blood caught up with her. Catwoman was threatening, but she didn't know that Batgirl — that Barbara Gordon — was the daughter of the very man whose notebook she'd stolen. James Gordon was a die-hard GCPD detective, and his daughter wasn't the kind of girl who caved to threats. She was the kind of girl who practiced arm-bar drills and counterpunch exercises with her dad for fun. She was the daughter of a truth-seeker. A door-kicker. A fighter who had never backed down. Barbara wasn't about to start now.

"And I haven't shown you how little that matters yet,  _ Kitten _ ," Barbara snapped, dipping into a fighting stance, quietly satisfied at the opportunity to use some of the tough-girl lines she'd prepped.

" _ 'Kitten!' _ Stealing that, too!" Catwoman giggled again. She casually flourished her claws, offering them for Barbara to see. "Look, sweetie, we could do this for a few more minutes, and you could go to the emergency room missing all your blood. Or we could try and have some fun!  _ Really get acquainted. _ Let's do that instead, yeah?"

The sweep kick that followed was unimaginably fast. Barbara was flat on her back before she even saw Catwoman close the gap, turn her hip, or crouch and swing her leg in a full circle. Barbara simply blinked, realized she had no feet under her, and watched the moon wince at her as her skull rang against the rooftop. A gasp squashed out of Barbara's lungs as she felt Catwoman leap on top of her, straddling her stomach and pinning her arms.

Whatever air Barbara had left squeaked pathetically out of her open mouth. She felt a cold steel claw graze her windpipe, and the image of her exsanguinated body laid under a bloody coroner's tarp flashed behind her eyes.

Then, just as quickly, Catwoman leaned down and stuck her tongue into Barbara's mouth.

It wasn't a kiss; not really, at least. That would require more lips touching lips. It certainly wasn't a friendly greeting either, and it wasn't a threat. It was a long, luxurious, warm  _ lick _ . Catwoman's sizable bust pressed down into Barbara, who recoiled into the concrete, her eyes wide in confusion as the pain mixed with the unexpected, silky sensuality. Her head swam, and with a single string of warm saliva that stretched and split as Catwoman pulled away, it was all over before she could think.

_ "You're lucky I like you, Kitten," _ Catwoman purred.

Barbara growled and flexed every muscle she had. Jiu-jitsu reflexes screamed to life, and she turned a shoulder to throw her hips high enough to reach a leglock over Catwoman's neck from behind. But the thief had already vaulted into a handstand using Barbara's throat as a balance beam, and flattened her windpipe for a moment as she did. Catwoman cartwheeled away with a giggle, leaving Barbara coughing and gasping. She kipped to her feet just in time to throw a Batarang into the cloud of ventilation steam that Catwoman had danced through. The tinny ringing sound of metal against brick let her know she'd missed.

_ What the hell was that?! _ Barbara thought as she coughed her airway open. But this was at the top of Catwoman's profile:  _ 'Uses Seduction to Disarm Opponents' _ . She tried to push the thought of hot, wet tongue out of her mind, tried to ignore the faint floral notes of berries, or whatever Catwoman's mouth tasted like. Was it wine? Was that how she managed to stay so warm in cold Gotham nights wearing nothing but that ridiculous Halloween costume that left most of her breasts spilling out of the neckline?

_ "Get it together, Batgirl," _ Barbara whispered to herself, tapping the other side of her visor to activate the night vision options. White lenses glowed over her eyes, and heat signatures exploded everywhere around her in bright reds and yellows from the steam vents — Catwoman had picked this rooftop for at least that reason. Barbara toggled the cowl's vision back off and stalked through clouds of steam waiting for the telltale wind up sound of a whip. The building sighed its white smoke silently into the night sky. No whip strike came.

A long while passed, and Barbara began to panic as she felt the notebook slipping away.  _ No tracker, no heat signature. Damn it! _ she thought. Taking a risk, she jumped atop a maintenance shed. She could get a wider view of the rooftop that way, but she was also a very visible, convenient target. She toggled the heat vision back on briefly, her cowl's eyes glowing like beacons. A cold spot blinked blue on the opposite side of the building. She vaulted toward it — a series of skylight windows.

"Bingo!" Barbara said, readying more Batarangs as she sprinted.  _ She's not catching me off-guard this time. _

The view through the skylight gazed down to a private dressing room twenty feet below. Its walls and closet doors were lined with dark mahogany and decorated with rich black iron fittings to match the black leather benches and dark, moody paintings on the walls. Sconces cast warm, delicate candlelight onto everything, making the whole room look like a warm glass of whiskey.

Catwoman, undressing quietly, was the ice cube at the center of this glass.

Her glib green eyes looked up expectantly at Barbara the moment her face appeared through the skylight. Catwoman's boots and gloves were already off, and a lazy finger drew the zipper of her jumpsuit all the way down to her belly button, her creamy cleavage relaxing as the fabric gave way. Before Barbara could consider what was happening, Catwoman smiled seductively, and peeled off her jumpsuit. She wore nothing beneath.

Barbara turned her eyes a moment later, and couldn't withhold a gasp. She could sense Catwoman's gaze, still and unashamed, locked onto her.  _ No, don't be shy, _ she seemed to say.  _ Look at me.  _ From her peripheral vision, Barbara saw heavy breasts spill from the plunging black neckline one by one. Catwoman channeled more than a little burlesque to the performance — her back arched high as she slid her arms from the sleeves, proudly showing her chest to the moonlight. Then, she turned and bent artfully down to the floor, sliding the jumpsuit over her thighs and buttocks as she did, gleefully casting a moon of her own into the night.

At the skylight, Barbara's head turned away, and it didn't. Her eyes averted, and they wouldn't. Barbara had a modesty that Catwoman obviously didn’t, but even that was stumbled as the private stage show played out as a series of snapshots that Barbara tried to blink out of her mind: breasts, thighs, cheeks, smiles. She couldn’t unsee the creamy skin pouring out of dark leather. After a short while, Catwoman produced a dark hanger from a closet door, lazily hung the jumpsuit from it, and began strolling toward a door on the far side of the room. She turned for a moment to cup a hand under each breast, juggle them back and forth, and make a kissy-face. Then, she waved goodbye.

Barbara scowled as she remembered Catwoman’s profile:  _ 'Uses Seduction to Disarm Opponents' _ .

_ A distraction! _ Barbara thought to herself.  _ She could change clothes and blend in here to escape! _ She pounded a gauntlet at the glass — the reinforced, bulletproof glass with no latches or moving panels. It’d take minutes with the micro-torch to get through, and Catwoman would be gone by then. She wasn’t even sure a blast charge would do anything except make a loud mess and cave the ceiling in, which wasn’t an option with potential civilians inside.  _ How the hell did she get in? She must have gone in through the... _

"...Front door!" The obvious answer leapt out of Barbara's mouth the moment she dashed away from the skylight and flipped off the rooftop, hooking a zipline to the roof to ease her landing at the building's front door two stories below. Three men waited at a subdued, dimly-lit concierge inside. At first glance, it was completely innocuous: there were no signs inside or out, and the men were formally dressed. It all even looked a little inviting.  _ A hotel? A spa of some kind? _

Barbara burst through the large, heavy glass door and sprinted to the concierge desk. The men there were slightly less taken aback than she expected, but the two larger, stockier ones stepped out from behind the desk as she approached. They sentried themselves at either side of the table, blocking passage to the doors behind them. The other man at the desk, thin and wiry as his moustache, smiled.

"Batgirl, I presume?" he asked, as though it weren't obvious or strange in the slightest.  _ "Enchantée, mademoiselle _ . You have been invi—"

"—The Gotham Alley Cat! She's inside! I need to stop her!" Barbara growled as she approached. She didn't have Bruce's intimidating baritone growl, but she had anger.

The man smiled, imperceptibly annoyed at being interrupted. " _ Oui mademoiselle _ , but I must announce to our  _ most esteemed _ guest that she may not enter—"

"—I'm going in one way or another," Barbara warned, eyeing the guards. They eyed back. She sensed at least one of them had a holster beneath his suit jacket. The doorman probably had a panic button under the desk. Silently rotating into place above them, Barbara noticed two very small cameras angled down to cover the lobby, so if the doorman wasn’t able to sound the alarm, somebody in the monitoring room would.  _ Damn it, what was I thinking? _ Barbara wondered.

"Yes, Yes! I should hope so!" the doorman agreed. "And you are most welcome to! What I was going to say before I was interrupted was that  _ mademoiselle _ may not enter the evening's social... without undressing first."

A hot flush of embarrassed rage boiled under Barbara's cowl. Undressed? Why did he say that? Were there more security cameras that had seen her watching Catwoman undress? Had they seen the kiss they'd shared on the roof? Did they think Batgirl was some kind of pervert?

"What... I'm... I didn't... on the roof..."

Barbara's voice stumbled, and the thin doorman, ever a polite servant, extended a hand asking for pause to speak rather than suffer another interruption. His other hand pointed to a gold-etched sign above the desk that Barbara had been too angry and hurried to notice.

"If  _ mademoiselle _ will allow: clothing is not allowed here inside the Gotham City Hedonist Society."

Chills rained over Barbara's face, dousing the fire of embarrassment. Somehow, it made her even redder.

_ "The... what?" _


	2. The Ticket

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barbara pursues Catwoman into the Society as Robin tries to talk sense into her. Catwoman introduces her to a friend.

"The Gotham City Hedonist Society is a members-only private club for the exploration of all carnal physical pleasures life has to offer," the doorman offered in his carefully-rehearsed tone. "We have scheduled, nightly activities..."

His voice trailed off as Barbara considered the complexity of the web she suddenly realized she'd been lured into.

Catwoman had the notebook. She knew the value of what was in it. She knew Barbara — Batgirl — was new, eager to prove herself. So she put out a false lead on its whereabouts, one that she knew Batgirl would pick up... because _she knew Batgirl had been watching her_. She and Robin had gone out on the rounds for her known safehouses, and in turn, this let Catwoman know which ones to abandon.

In one of them, Barbara found the unknown safehouse through a clue she wished she'd noticed was too obvious: a brochure to the luxury highrise that Catwoman had destroyed. She'd split her from Robin effectively in triggering the bomb. And now, with Batgirl isolated and willing to stay that way, Catwoman had run to the one place that would show them both what Batgirl was really made of.

"...catered menu prepared by our world-class chef Martin Rockford and his... _m-mademoiselle_?"

Quietly, but deeply, Barbara was laughing. It was the kind of shallow chuckle that came out sounding like both a breath and a whistle.

"Is something funny, _mademoi_ —"

 _"—A sex club!"_ Barbara interrupted, speaking both to the doorman and to the idea of Catwoman's utter nerve. "Catwoman wants me to chase her... _into a sex club._ Really?"

 _"O-oui,"_ the man replied, confused. "The Society, it is much more than a _'sex club'_. We host a vari—"

"—There's no way I'm stripping down to go in there," Barbara replied as her laughter slowly fell away.

"Then there is no way you are going in there," replied the doorman in a friendly tone.

Seriousness settled over the small, private lobby. _What would Batman do?_ Barbara wondered, as she often did. He definitely wouldn't have followed Catwoman through the front door to begin with — but then, he wouldn't have let Catwoman escape the rooftop, either. Batgirl wasn’t as big and intimidating as Batman, but people usually at least reacted with apprehension when she appeared. That wasn’t working here. Now that the mistakes were made, what would he do in her place?

"This is official law enforcement business," Barbara said proudly, striding toward the left side door. "You're harboring a fugitive from the law. She's stolen something. I'm going inside to get her." The guard stepped into place to block her path, and the one on the opposite side of the desk reached inside his suit jacket for the pistol Barbara knew was there.

"Interesting proposition," said the doorman in a more serious tone. "Then _mademoiselle_ will kindly show her badge?"

Barbara froze, and turned to face the unusually brave doorman. He stood patiently at his post, waiting in earnest for Batgirl to produce LEO identification.

 _"Non?"_ he continued, pointing up and down at Barbara’s cowl and armor. "Because, this uniform of yours; it is most curious. I am not familiar with your particular _Bat-division_ of Gotham's police force."

She scowled. "You know what I mean."

"Sadly, I do not," he replied with mock disappointment. "But! Perhaps the police can sort this out for both of us, _oui_?" The man reached for the rotary phone behind his desk, drew the receiver, and began turning the dialer.

Ice poured through Barbara's veins. She definitely did not need police officers hearing about Batgirl in a sex club lobby. The cameras blinked silently overhead.

"No. Wait," Barbara said, trying to sound like she wasn't begging. "Stop."

"This is a respectful place of business," the concierge said as he continued dialing, "and, despite the growing trend of masked vigilantism in our fine city, it is a city of _laws_."

"That's enough—"

"—As this is a city of laws,” he continued on, “we are licensed and accredited in all ways required by law, as surely the Police Commissioner will testify—"

_"—Enough!"_

The man's finger paused in the dialing ring as he raised his eyebrows. Barbara stepped back. The guards relaxed their posture and exhaled, both seeming grateful to not have to do the harder part of their jobs. The doorman hung up the phone, flattened his mustache, and folded his hands patiently.

The notebook and its secrets loomed like a phantasm. Batgirl would come to an end if those secrets got out, leaving only Barbara and mountainous failure. Bruce's crusade would end violently if Dad found out that _his own daughter_ was on Batman’s task force. That end would only come faster if the police showed up and found Batgirl there — James Gordon worked secretly with Batman because no officer on the force openly wanted vigilantes on the streets. Every siren wailed for her just as much as Catwoman, and every moment was a chance for Catwoman to escape. Barbara tried not to think of the frightful shame rising in her throat at the thought of walking naked into whatever trap the thief might have laid for her, but the words came out before she could stop them.

"I'll... I'll do it. I'll undress," Barbara said, still secretly convinced there was no way it would actually, truly happen. "The mask stays on!" she added, pointing a finger.

The doorman raised his hands in surrender. " _Naturellement,_ _mademoiselle!_ " he said in his original friendly, respectful tone, ushering her toward one of the doors behind the desk. "All of our guests wear masks."

Barbara squinted. "Why? What, uh... _exactly_ do people do inside?"

The man made another innocent, surrendering gesture. "I do not presume the business of our members. But some prefer the... excitement of anonymity," he explained, opening the door for her. "Surely you can relate."

"Surely," Barbara groaned, walking to the doorway. A mahogany-clad hallway with a dozen dressing room doors on either side unfolded before her.

"Your equipment shall also wait in the locker," he added.

"What?" Barbara barked. She threw tense glances to the guards again.

"As I stated previously, we are a respectful place of business," he said. "No weapons or recording devices are allowed inside. My associate can assist you."

Barbara had already picked the most debilitating pressure point to strike on the guard next to her. It would be so easy. But as she eyed the security cameras above, she reconsidered. Cameras meant alarms; alarms meant police sirens. All of it meant failure.

Her fingers unclipped her belt and Batclaw, and the guard stepped into the hallway, opening the first side door. A series of armored long gun lockers were behind it, and the man took a key from his pocket to open one. A neat series of gun racks and equipment hooks were revealed behind the locker door. Barbara hung the belt from one and the grapple gun from another as she tried to ignore the tactical consequences of entering a building that featured a hardened gun locker. She couldn’t let Catwoman escape now.

The guard closed the door, and handed Barbara the key before stepping aside. He produced a handheld metal detector which he began sweeping over her body. It whistled and chirped, but found nothing notable. Barbara felt some relief that the ferropolymers in the cowl hid all the electronics inside.

"Oh, and _mademoiselle_ ? A message for you, from _Madame Chat_ ," the doorman said, offering her a bespoke parchment note card, neatly folded and sealed for privacy. The emblem of the club was painted on one side in elegant calligraphy. "Choose any dressing room you like to disrobe. The membership fee is waived. You are her personal _invité d'honneur_."

"Great," Barbara growled, taking the note. Fear crept up into her chest from the acid pits of her stomach.

"Should you fail to follow our rules, my associates here will politely escort you outside to the police. Please enjoy your evening!" the concierge concluded, disappearing into the lobby and closing the door behind him. 

Barbara sighed as she found herself alone in the quiet hallway. The silence was a haunting finality of the choice she'd made. She was inside — it was done. She couldn't leave now and risk losing the notebook forever, and fighting her way in wouldn't end much differently. The only real choice she had left was which room to undress in.

* * *

"Batgirl to Robin," Barbara said, keying the mic in her cowl. "Come in."

 _"Thank God!"_ Dick's voice replied, garbled by static. _"I'm fifteen minutes out, inbound now. You okay?"_

Barbara stood alone in the same dark wooden dressing room Catwoman had teased her from. The night sky twinkled through the skylight, mixing cool, moonlit tones with the warmth of the wall sconces. She could still taste Catwoman's strawberry flavor on her tongue, and see echoes of the softness of her naked body. Catwoman's note sat unfolded in her hand:

> _Kitten:_
> 
> _Thanks for the lovely warmup on the roof._
> 
> _Play nice or I won't tell you where I hid the notebook._
> 
> _Can't wait to see more of you..._
> 
> _Meow,_
> 
> _Cat 😼_

"I'm fine," Barbara replied, swallowing a knot.

 _"You don't sound fine,"_ he noticed. His voice crackled and distorted even more over the airwaves, now — something was interfering with the signal.

"It's just the signal loss. I'm good," Barbara lied.

 _"You sound nervous,"_ Dick said. _"Give the codeword if you're compromised."_

"I'm fine, _Dick_ ," she replied, closing her eyes and focusing on her breathing. She crumpled the note and threw it into a wastebasket.

 _"Alright, alright,"_ he said over the static. _"Where's Catwoman?"_

"I've... got her cornered, actually," she explained, wincing at her own half-truth. "She ducked into... some building. I trapped her inside. There's only one way in or out. No windows except for skylights on the roof. Sealed, bulletproof ones."

 _"Nice,"_ Dick replied. _"Alright, I’ve got your location, I think. You run point, flush her out. I'll cover the entrance, and Batman will get the takedown."_

Barbara froze. _"He's coming?!"_

 _"I know, I know,"_ Dick apologized. _"Secret mission for the notebook. But you killed comms and I didn't want to find your body in the morgue later, so..."_

"No, you're right," sighed Barbara, resigning. She'd just have to tell him. She owed him at least that much, and the weight of that truth made her heart sink. "You're right. About everything."

A long silence hovered. _"Batgirl?"_

"The notebook is my... is Police Commissioner Gordon's."

Silence. Then: _"Okay."_

"You know, Commissioner Gordon with the big, glowing signal? The one of this symbol that we all wear? Who likes to meet with Batman? And share notes about his current investigations?"

 _"Oh,"_ Dick said, suddenly understanding. _"You mean the Batman who makes a lifestyle of being ten steps ahead of everyone? And who would suddenly be ten steps behind everyone if a notebook full of his plans with the police commissioner got out?"_

Barbara felt sick, and muted the mic to take a few long, fearful breaths until the salty taste of fear and shame oozed back down into her stomach. _"Yeah, that's the guy!"_ she sang nervously.

_"How'd Catwoman get it?"_

"Catwoman..." Barbara bit the words back this time, clenching her hands into fists so they'd stop shaking. Then, she began again.

"Catwoman stole it from me."

A silence again. She continued.

"I... took it from his desk, and I was... I was going to read it while I was on patrol. To learn. I was curious. But Catwoman must have been tailing me. I left it on a rooftop. Busted a car thief, then went back for it and then Catwoman was... Robin, if I can't get it back—"

 _"—then Batman will forgive you,"_ Dick said.

"W-what?"

 _"You're putting too much on your shoulders,"_ he continued over the static. _"How could you have known Catwoman would steal Gordon's notebook? It's on her. We're after her, not you."_

He wasn't wrong. That helped set her right for a moment — this was Catwoman's doing. But now, Barbara had still put everyone in danger by trying to take on Catwoman alone. Her friends, her teammates, and her family were all exposed. She was next, and in more ways than one. _Barbara, you idiot,_ she thought.

"You weren't kidding about Catwoman," she admitted. "She's a heavy hitter. She got in my head for a minute with her little routine."

_"Yeah, she tried the whole seduction thing with me once, too."_

Barbara balked a moment before she opened the mic. Up until now, she'd thought Batman alone had squared off against Catwoman. She realized one of the reasons Batman would probably have kept that secret from Barbara as a new emotion froze her hands still, and squinted her eyes.

She recognized it as jealousy.

"Did... did she?" Barbara asked.

_"Did she what?"_

"You know. Seduce you." Barbara muted the mic and winced at the sound of her own girlish insecurity. _"What the hell am I doing?"_ she whispered to herself.

_"Yeah, you know how she is. Twirls the whip, makes bedroom eyes. Gives you a nickname and everything. Mine's 'Bird Boy'. Sweet, huh?"_

"She... she didn't do anything to you, did she?" Barbara licked her lips and tasted Catwoman's tongue.

_"Well, her profile does put 'Psychotic Narcissist' right next to... 'Possible Nymphomaniac' I think? But no, she didn't manage to spank me or anything if that's what you mean."_

"Oh, shut up!" Barbara laughed.

Dick Grayson was many things to Barbara Gordon: friend, fighter, teammate. But through their trials together with Batman, their long nights on patrol in Gotham City, and the bonds that had grown between them, Dick was even more than just those things to her now.

Barbara had a terrible crush on him.

He was strong. Witty. Kind. An amazing guy with a heart full of joy and passion for all the suffering he'd been through in losing his parents. It was perfectly natural that she'd admire him — that they'd kiss eventually. It didn't hurt that he had the kind of body only a world-class gymnast could have, the kind of smile that girls would kill to wake up next to, and the kind of thick, strong forearms that she often fantasized about biting into for some reason. Barbara had kissed boys before, but his kiss had kept her awake more than a few nights. And while that kiss was their first, it was also their last.

 _"We can't do this,"_ he'd told her. _"Not with this lifestyle. What if one of us got hurt? Or worse?"_

He was right of course. And so, it was back to business as usual that same night, and every night since then.

Now, here Barbara was, in the dressing room of a sex club, wondering if Catwoman had managed to get further along with Dick than she had. She wiped her fingers over her face in self-disgust and threw her head back to sigh at the moon.

 _"She's a psychotic nutjob,"_ Dick's voice added. _"Kind of like you, only way more gross."_

"Oh, you don't say!" Barbara groaned, laughing. She licked her lips again and wished for a moment that they tasted like his plain, generic brand lip balm instead of whatever Catwoman's mouth tasted like. The thought brought her back down to earth. "What's your status?"

 _"I'm trying to find your signal but we're in Old Gotham,"_ Dick said, cutting in and out over the static — he was probably moving in the wrong direction. _"The building you're... probably has a lot of concrete and lead. You said… skylights, too? Your locator is ghosting out..."_

"Maybe the whole place has a wireless signal dampener, for privacy. There are cameras throughout, but they’re probably on an old closed-circuit rig, if that’s the case," added Barbara. "Stay on the roof above the entrance once you get here. And check your vector, I think you’re going the wrong way… Robin?"

Dick's voice slowly faded. _"Batman's inbound... aking the Batwing from Metropolis... thirty minutes out, give or ta... on't engage until all three of us are on-site... eaking up, let's go radio silen... try and amp the comms array..."_

She thought about the look she'd find on Batman's face when he arrived. It'd probably be the same one he always had — he was scary as hell, even to his friends. He always seemed disappointed somehow, like a sensei dealing with an undeserving student. And now, sensei was coming back to the training grounds because an insubordinate girl had made a mess of things. But even with Batman barreling toward her at the speed of sound, nothing changed. As long as the notebook was in Catwoman's hands, it was a liability to all of them — one that nobody on the team could afford.

And with Barbara being the closest one to it, she really had no choice as to what she should do next.

She looked at herself in the dressing room's tall vanity mirror. The light flattered her: the black carbon fiber and kevlar-laced armor looked sleek around her hips for once. The shock of red hair spilling from the back of her cowl spread rather elegantly over her shoulders. Soon, that'd be all she was wearing.

"Copy radio silence," she said, unhooking the cowl from the suit's hidden fasteners in the neck. "Do not engage. Batgirl out."

Batgirl stared at Barbara in the mirror as they began undressing together.

She was more mysterious than Barbara was, and far more powerful. Smart enough to take down bigger, badder opponents. She had a high-powered stealth motorcycle that she drove whenever she wasn't soaring over Gotham's night sky in a customized wingsuit. She could take a punch that should crush a girl her size, then get right back up and somehow throw that same punch back. Her mentor was, for almost anyone concerned, an actual demon from hell sent to save Gotham from its own sins. She was there to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him and bring the wicked to a swift, sometimes brutal justice.

Barbara didn’t miss the irony of peeling off the Batgirl uniform and revealing nothing but the real, frightened girl hidden beneath.

The suit uncoupled at the center, just like Catwoman's, only by a series of hidden articulated fasteners that could seal just as quickly as they opened. Her suit didn't show off any slutty, unnecessary cleavage, but Barbara couldn't help but look at her body as she split the suit down the middle of her chest, all the way down past her belly button. She made a slow, sensual reveal out of it the same way Catwoman had a few minutes earlier. Barbara wanted to say that she looked just as sexy. She didn't.

 _"What am I doing?"_ she wondered aloud as she detached the gauntlets and went to work on the combat boots.

Catwoman had the one thing that Barbara knew she didn't — shameless sex appeal. No matter that she looked like some kind of cat-themed stripper in her "usual" outfit: the jumpsuit hid literally nothing about her body. Catwoman naked was pretty much the same thing as Catwoman in costume. She tried not to remember the way her breasts spilled out of the catsuit. _How does she get away with not wearing a bra with a body like that?_ Barbara wondered. _That stupid suit has inlaid padding or something._ She looked to the dressing room lockers; one of them inevitably held Catwoman's things. She could try to pick the locks, find the one with the suit and—

"Stop, Barbara," she said to herself. _'Uses Seduction to Disarm Opponents'._ Now, under half an hour chasing Catwoman and she already had Barbara lost in self-conscious worries about her own body.

Barbara unhooked her sports bra and folded it over her shoulders, letting her breasts spill free. They were aching and sweaty from the evening's work, and her coral-tinted nipples were already stiff from the insanely cold air conditioning. She slid her panties down her legs as well, and the cool air was refreshing, for a moment. She spotted a basket of toiletries and grabbed a kit marked _‘Shower in a Bag’_ to wipe her body down with the perfumed towelette inside. It worked well enough. She folded everything as neatly as she could and locked it all away with the same key from the equipment storage, tucking the key into a hidden compartment in the cowl's ear. Barbara turned to the mirror, and gave herself one last look.

When Barbara wasn't being Batgirl, she was a college freshman. She was laser-focused academically, and had the highest grade in nearly all of her classes. Naturally, she wasn't very popular at all, but that suited her lifestyle just fine. Her dorm roommate often went out to party without her, and when Barbara had the place to herself and wasn't on patrol, she would let loose a little. She'd stream a guilty pleasure Top 40 playlist, sing at the top of her lungs, and dance naked through the apartment on the way out of the shower. Barbara liked the way her body looked then, while she was alone — Batman's physical training regimen gave her killer abs and amazing definition in her thighs to go with her modest chest and hips. Sometimes, she'd snap poses in the mirror, make sexy faces, and do other horribly embarrassing things she'd never, ever tell anyone.

Sometimes, she imagined Dick was there with her. And sometimes, she touched herself to that thought. It took her longer than she liked to stop herself.

The Barbara with Batgirl's face standing in the dressing room of the Gotham City Hedonist Society was not excited or aroused. In the innermost core of her being, she was utterly terrified.

 _"Oh my God, what am I doing?"_ Barbara suddenly realized as she stared at her nakedness. What was Catwoman going to do to her? What was she going to _make her do?_ She'd already managed to get Barbara in this deep. Was there someplace deeper?

She reached for her cowl, the words _"Batgirl to Robin"_ climbing up her throat. She stopped before they could jump out.

In the mirror, she imagined Batman's steely scowl beside her own face. Slowly, her hand fell back to her side.

"No," Barbara whispered as she strode from the dressing room. "I can do this."

* * *

_“Oh my God, I can't do this!’_ Barbara whimpered as she walked out into the grand reception hall to the sight of dozens of people — if not hundreds — all in the middle of a massive orgy.

She shuffled by a series of elegant couches and booths, all dripping with naked bodies. One group came into focus: two men in bear masks were penetrating a fox-masked woman from behind, who seemed to be enjoying it somehow. One man was lying beneath her and buried deep inside her vagina, pounding it by bouncing her back and forth. The other was behind the woman, and buried deep inside her as well, but definitely not inside her vagina. The woman looked at Barbara as her heavy breasts flopped back and forth from the impacts of the two-man team, and she grunted like an animal, a sound twisted and confused by the mask she wore. She wasn't being made love to, and she wasn't having intercourse, or even sex — she was being fucked. The woman stared directly into Barbara's eyes, and smiled invitingly.

 _"Ohmygod-ohmygod-ohmygod-eww,"_ Barbara chanted to herself as she hurried by in a waddle, clutching one forearm across her breasts and covering her crotch with the other.

Another woman was surrounded by a dozen men of various levels of fitness and hairiness, all of them masked, and all of them masturbating long, red-tipped penises. Barbara realized the unusual redness was due to the women they were surrounding: two young girls her age, both with jet black hair, both with bright red lipstick smeared in a mess over their mouths. Unlike the others, they weren't masked — they had exquisite face and body paint instead. Much of it was gently melting away from their eyes, and both of them sweated and moaned from their efforts at sucking the forest of flesh around them. One of the girls suddenly had her head yanked back by the hair as the man she was sucking stroked a spray of semen all over her gaping mouth and runny face. The other girl paused in sucking her current man to admire her girlfriend's success and moan in satisfaction. Barbara soured at the man's deep, hungry grunts as he painted the poor girl's eyes shut with waves of seed. The girlfriend stopped watching for a moment and locked eyes with Barbara, making an eager come-hither motion with her finger.

_"Ohmygod-ohmygod-eew-ohmygod..."_

A small group of naked Gotham businessmen laughed over tumblers of brandy as a naked blonde in a dog mask, bound and gagged on her hands and knees, served quite literally as the table they were gathered at: a small tabletop was strapped to her back. The ropework laced over her body seemed to keep her in a specifically table-like shape: hands and knees down, back flat, head tilted slightly back. One of the men was slowly thrusting into her slick, wet vagina from behind, and long sticky strings of arousal stretched and squashed between them as the man took her. Her eyes were rolled back in utter ecstasy. The slaps of flesh mixed with her ball-gagged moans of pleasure as ropes of drool spilled out from the edges of her mouth. Her bottom was heavy and wide, and red from the punishment. She seemed to be on a disc-shaped platform that could rotate, and as her man decided he was finished for now, he exited her and turned the disc around, offering her to another man who stroked himself to prepare. One of the men tapped his friend on the shoulder and looked at Barbara. She wished she couldn't lip-read with perfect accuracy, but unfortunately in this case, she did: _God damn, look at the body on that chick in the Bat mask!_

_"Eew-ohmygod-eew-ohmygod-no..."_

Barbara had hoped the raw volume of people on the main floor would offer her some anonymity. Who notices a shy girl in a room full of people going at it like animals? But it wasn't working. They could sense her, like a hobbled gazelle stumbling across a pride of lions.

"Hey," came a voice from over her shoulder.

A man appeared as she whipped her head to the side and tried to cease from existing. He had a pleasant face concealed beneath an owl mask, and a nicer physique than most, but was nonetheless as naked as everyone else. "Are... you okay?" he asked.

 _"I'mfine! Justfine!"_ Barbara said hastily as she turned and walked away, facing sideways so the man wouldn't look at her ass while she did. To her horror, he slowly followed after, his long, floppy member dangling as he reached his hand towards her. Shame surged through her body as heat.

"Uh, wait!" he asked. "If I can, uh—"

 _"—I'mfineI'mfine!"_ Barbara mewled pathetically. _"Thankyoubye!"_

He smiled kindly, and his body wasn't unpleasant to look at, but she didn't want to look. That would mean there was some sort of implicit transaction meaning he was allowed to look at her in return. Barbara didn't want anyone to see her ever again.

"You... look like you're afraid, is all—"

"—Look! I'm sure you're... trying to help, or something," Barbara said, trying not to glance at the man's penis and failing, "but... just don't. _And stop looking at me!"_

"Okay, I won't look!" he said, averting his gaze. "I'm, uh... I'm Jason. Jason Powers. I'd shake your hand, but..."

"Yeah," Barbara said. The humiliation burned in her chest at the very thought of meeting someone while naked, but she stopped to introduce herself out of some strange, misplaced reflex that made her keep her manners. "I'm, uh..."

She paused, wondering if she should fake a name and a story for him. But what if the mask gave her an edge?

"...I'm Batgirl."

"Nice!" Jason replied, chuckling politely as he flirted. "The mask looks really good on you."

Barbara shot a sidelong glance at him, hiding her curves and modesty as best she could. His eyes studied the flush blooming in her face, and widened with sudden understanding.

"Oh... shit you're... _Batgirl._ Holy... Like, the _Batman_ Batgi—"

 _"Yesandpleasekeepyourvoicedown!"_ Barbara hissed.

"Right, sorry!" Jason whispered, looking around. No more eyes than usual seemed to be gravitating toward Barbara, which was still far, far too many.

"Oh my... I'm so sorry. So you... _wow_. Sorry, I just... You're real!" Jason whispered in awe.

Barbara wasn't religious, but she made a silent prayer that either she or the man would simply disappear. She covered her crotch more tightly and adjusted her arm before a nipple could spill out. "Anyway I'm, uh, here for someone," she said nervously. Then, even more nervously: _"Looking! Looking for someone!"_

The man held up his palms. "Sure! Uh, you mean her? She's been staring at you since you walked in."

Barbara whirled in the direction Jason was looking at. There, on the opposite side of the hall, in a tall doorway to a separate room marked _"Private"_ , a lean, voluptuous woman in a cat mask stood halfway concealed by the door. Catwoman's eyes smiled as she vanished into the private room. Barbara scowled.

"Yeah. Thanks, Jason," she offered.

"My pleasure!" Jason replied, smiling a bit as the infamous Batgirl apparently warmed up to him. He wasn't a bad flirt, but this was absolutely the one hundred percent wrong time to do so. His eyes narrowed as he came to terms with what he was seeing. "Wait, if you're Batgirl, is that... that cat burglar from the news? _'Alley Cat'_ or something?"

"Yes," Barbara warned, feeling Batgirl boil to the surface. She took a deep breath and strode off, still covering herself as she did.

"Wait, is... should I get out of here? Is something dangerous happening?"

"Not if I can help it," Barbara said. "Oh, and Jason?" she added over her shoulder.

"Yeah?"

"Pretty sure the Powers family doesn't want word getting out that you're a member of... whatever this place is," she said. "We never saw each other here. You got me?"

Jason nodded nervously and swallowed a lump. "Yeah."

* * *

Barbara turned the handle, pressed the door with her hip, and entered the private room quickly and quietly as a naked, horrified girl in a sex club possibly could.

Her hands darted over her body to cover her shame as the heavy door nudged her, stumbling her as she crept in. She sidled nervously aside as it closed with a _click_ , drawing the eyes of everyone in the room. A private dining parlor that looked like a gangster movie set waited for her within. It featured the same mahogany paneling and dark leather as the dressing room did, and a long, dark dining table was its centerpiece. It was surrounded by twenty tall, ominous chairs with twenty shadowy figures.

"Tony, this is that girlfriend of mine I told you about."

Catwoman's voice echoed in the small chamber from behind the back of one of the luxurious chairs. It was turned slightly away from the door, but as her eyes adjusted to the dimness, Barbara could see the edges of her smiling face and her cat-eared mask. A delicate hand gestured lazily at the doorway.

 _She knew I would come,_ Barbara thought. _This really was it. This was her plan all along. Oh God..._

"Is that so?" another voice replied before a long pause, and the sound of soft chewing. "She don't look like much."

The voice came from the head of the table. An undeniably handsome man, small and very slight of build, sat there brandishing a forkful of steak ready to chase the mouthful he was currently chewing. He had slick black hair and a cavalier expression of disinterest, one perhaps bolstered by the fact that, unlike everyone else, he was dressed. A neat white tuxedo shirt was unbuttoned at the top two notches, leaving the black bow tie dangling from one fold of the collar. A gold chain with a cross decorated the man's chest hair, and a thick gold ring sparkled on his finger. He sniffed and poured a swig of wine in with his chewed meat. Barbara immediately hated everything about him.

Attending the small man's chair was, quite ironically, the single largest man Barbara had ever seen. He stood nearly seven feet tall and probably weighed close to four hundred pounds. Unlike the smaller man, he was naked, and Barbara could see that he had an off-season fighter's body: big stout legs held up a wide barrel gut, and corded neck muscles and massive biceps burrowed under layers of fat. He looked as sturdy as the building itself; he was at least as still and silent. His massive hands were folded neatly over his groin, covering his manhood. His single gold ring was the only thing he wore, and it sparkled from his massive pinky finger like a candlelight.

"What do you think?" the small man asked the large one.

He was bald, stony, and expressionless, like an ancient statue of a guardian spirit looming over the small man's shoulder. He sniffed, and said nothing.

"Yeah, me too," the small man agreed.

Barbara studied the room and noticed there were no other entrances, exits, windows, or skylights. _This isn't good. I need to leave,_ her mind begged. Her hands covered her body even more tightly at the small man's gaze. He seemed to look at her like she was an unamusing piece of meat, not unlike the steak he was eating. A grand chandelier flickered quietly overhead, and the muffled sounds of the heated orgy in the main area whispered through the closed door. Barbara considered going back out there might be a better idea, but crept deeper into the room anyway.

As she inched towards the table, she found Catwoman's unmistakable physique seated in the chair beside the foot of the table. Her arms were folded casually over her breasts, covering them out of laziness rather than shame.

"Oh, don't you worry, Tony," Catwoman purred, smiling her bawdy smile at Barbara as she crept into view. "There's _much more_ to her than meets the eye.

Barbara studied the rest of the dinner party. In the other chairs, naked women of various shapes and sizes lounged in utter boredom. Some of them were enhanced with a surgeon's equivalent of a sledgehammer: large fake breasts, thick fake lips. A few others were a bit older and more weathered, but still painted with enough makeup to frost a cake. Naked men were seated between each woman, and all of them looked at least as bored as the small man called Tony. Some casually touched their girls, while others sipped at glasses of wine or poked at cold food on messy plates. They formed a tribunal of sorts where anyone entering the room could stand at the empty space at the foot of the table and be judged. Each man had his own large, sparkly gold ring.

They couldn't have been a more stereotypical Gotham crime family.

Tony rolled his eyes and gestured with his fork as he spoke. "Gentlemen, are we amused with Kitty Cat's little sidekick here?" he asked his men, shoving the steak morsel into his mouth. Barbara seethed and hugged her body tightly, protecting it from Tony's greasy gaze.

Barely anyone made a sound besides chewing and drinking. It shouldn't have made a difference to Barbara what a room full of naked gangsters and their whores thought of her, but she shriveled a bit. It felt like she was in a bad dream where she was a nervous secretary entering a board meeting to interrupt, only she'd forgotten all her clothes. How silly she was, this naked, shy secretary.

"That's what I thought," Tony said through his chewing. "Let's talk again about this notebook thing, though, Cat."

Barbara's eyes widened at the word, then frowned with sad shame. She wasn't sure what was worse — being naked and studied by everyone in the room, or being naked and utterly ignored.

"How so, Big Guy?" Catwoman purred.

"Let's settle up," Tony said as he sawed off a bloody chunk of meat. "How'd you say you got a hold of it?"

"I didn't," Catwoman shrugged. "I'm the Gotham Alley Cat, aren't I?" she said, referencing the nickname Gotham News had given her. Everyone chuckled.

"How do I know you haven't read it yet?"'

"Oh, you don't!" Catwoman said glibly. "But I'm not some _info broker_ , honey. The only paper I care about is _green_ and has those handsome pictures of Ben Franklin."

Tony chewed his steak and nodded his understanding. "I get that. But how do I know it's got what you say it's got inside? You said the deal's off if I open it. I'm respecting that."

The word sparked a sudden understanding: the notebook was for sale, and this was the closing room. Catwoman and Tony were just haggling and sweetening the deal. The righteous fire in her gut wanted to burn bright and demand they turn themselves in or suffer her wrath. Suppressing those flames was the fact that Barbara felt naked without her weapons, tools, or backup — and that she was literally naked.

"Let's say it's the GCPD's to-do list, and you're on it," Catwoman said. "Or, let's say it's a list of Old Man Gordon's favorite donut shops. _Who cares?_ Do you wanna know too, or don't you?" Barbara soured at Catwoman's callous remark: that was _her dad's_ notebook. It was like overhearing school bullies talk about lunch money they'd stolen from her little brother.

"Sure I do," conceded Tony, setting aside his fork. "But, you see, here's the thing. I pay you for it, and I read it? Now we both know what's inside — we're even. Only difference is, you've got my money and I don't."

"That's the idea," Catwoman purred. Everyone chuckled again.

"So you see, that's where I can't just take your deal," Tony explained, knocking on the table for quiet. "I don't walk away from a deal I'm not coming out on top of."

"Oh, I don't know, Big Guy," Catwoman mused. Barbara watched her long, creamy arm reach overhead to caress the back of the chair she was lounging in, casually revealing one of her breasts. "You'd like it a lot if _I was on top."_

The thinly-veiled proposition brought cheers from everyone. "Now _that._ That’s fair," Tony said with a grin.

"And you see, that's where I can't just take _your_ deal," Catwoman replied, mirroring the man's words. "Not my kind of collateral. A girl's got a reputation to keep, and if I give you the _premium treatment_ , suddenly everyone expects it. I'd be _shooting my wad_ just to get you to _shoot yours_."

Chuckles fluttered across the dinner table again, the women laughing politely for the men, and the men laughing politely for their boss. Catwoman seemed to own the room like a skilled stand-up comedian, and the man called Tony was just a heckler in the audience. He gestured for calm, though, and they all listened.

"Okay. So to even it out, I get a show, eh? _Kitty Cat Show,_ you called it?" he asked. Barbara's brow furrowed at the number of possibilities behind the word: _Show._ She didn't like any of them.

"Yup," Catwoman said.

"Final offer?"

Catwoman shrugged her best _"oh well"_ shrug. "Final offer," she replied.

Tony chuckled incredulously to himself.

"You doubt me?" Catwoman asked, shocked. "Tony! I've been a member at your club for _months._ I can put on a show."

A few heads at the table nodded in agreement. Barbara thought back to her rooftop cat-and-mouse with Catwoman, and suddenly it hit her how foolish she'd been to assume she was the cat in that exchange. This wasn't Catwoman's base of operations. This was her playground.

Batman had a name for this particular part of the hunt: _'The Stage'_.

Psychotic criminals with a knack for showmanship desired an audience, and _'The Red Carpet'_ always led to a final arena where they could play out their delusional fantasies. A place where they could put on a show. Every criminal had their own _'Stage'_ : the Ventriloquist liked to sit on actual stages in abandoned theaters and talk with Batman about the nature of control as he played with his puppet; Victor Zsasz had a horrible, filthy kill room smeared with blood stains — many of them his own — where he'd debated with Batman whether or not human life had any real value.

Naturally, Catwoman had a private dining room in a sex club.

"I'd probably have given you the _Kitty Cat Show_ for fun," Catwoman added. "Either way, we all win, right? Now, do we have a deal or not?"

The room bristled with approval for Catwoman. She crossed a leg and dangled it like a cat flicking its tail as it sat contentedly in a warm sunbeam. Tony, for all his power and station from atop his oversized high chair, seemed inclined to agree with the wishes of his cabinet.

"Alright," he said. "Deal."


	3. The Stage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barbara discovers an important fact; Catwoman makes a power play.

Tony waved a hand toward the chair at Catwoman's side where a thin man with a heavy beard sat. He pulled a suitcase from beneath the table, and opened it to reveal an embedded laptop. His lithe fingers typed quickly, and a plain, functional banking portal appeared on the screen.

_ "You'll never get away with this" _ hovered at the top of Barbara's throat, right next to  _ "You're disgusting" _ and  _ "You're all going to prison" _ . But Barbara just couldn't summon the words — the shame of being in the room was all too real. As this small, scared, disgusted version of Batgirl, she knew she wouldn't be taken seriously: she was just a naked girl in a Bat mask. She squinted away tears of frustration and swallowed a knot.

"Verify the amount and your offshore account information, Miss, uh... Cat?" the bearded man asked as he offered the screen to her, taking a long look at her body as he did.

Catwoman glanced at the screen for a long while and pushed it away with disinterest. "Looks fine," she said, smiling seductively at Tony and ignoring his digital bagman. "You know the value of a  _ professional _ when you see one, Big Guy." Catwoman squeezed her cleavage with her arms to emphasize her point.

Tony casually straightened his slick black hair and seemed to smile at his good business investment. He nodded to his associate, who spoke: "The wire transaction is pending, sir," he explained to his boss. "Fifteen minutes when you give the word."

From her training, Barbara knew Criminals in Gotham usually liked to work in two mediums: completely untraceable transactions such as cash, and completely traceable transactions such as wire transfers. They worked in the former with people they trusted, and in the latter with people they didn't. After all, who in their right mind would show up with a bag of money to make a deal with a thief?

While money moving through banks would eventually draw questions, most big time gangsters had enough power or lawyers to make those questions disappear — or they owned the banks. Now that her eyes had adjusted to the light, Barbara studied Tony's face curiously. Whoever he was, he was cautious. He'd made the extra insurance of a sort of digital dead man's switch; if he didn't make a confirmation with his bank somehow after the initial transmit, the transaction would fail. This way Catwoman couldn't get the money if she just murdered him outright.

"Now, what do you call this poor little thing?" Tony asked, suddenly remembering that the small, naked, red-haired woman by the door existed. Barbara shriveled as his gaze turned to her body and studied it, carving off another chunk of steak to amuse himself while he did.

"Well, I call her  _ 'Kitten' _ ," Catwoman said, "but that's  _ my name for her _ ." Catwoman paused for effect, making sure Barbara knew the name she'd used against Catwoman on the rooftop was her weapon, now. Then, Catwoman finished her introduction:

"This one calls herself  _ The Batgirl _ ."

Tony instantly froze. He stopped chewing and locked eyes with Barbara, taking a moment to reconsider her: strong build, Bat mask, red hair, arms covering her body in pathetic shame. He chuckled at what he saw, and kept chewing. Barbara felt the redness flush over her, felt herself shrink under the laughter.

"The fuck you say," he mumbled through his steak.

"I do," Catwoman purred.

He chewed and chewed, shaking his head and chuckling for a long while, even looking up to the big man next to him to try to get him to laugh along. The man squinted and chuckled, just once. Tony poked his fork in Catwoman's direction, and shot her a  _ you-almost-got-me _ sort of glance. Catwoman peeked around the side of her chair and rolled her eyes at Barbara.

Eventually, Tony stopped laughing, but he enjoyed the chuckling chorus for a while. At one moment, the light seemed to hit his face in just a certain way, and Barbara's eyes sparkled with devilish joy.

As a kid, Barbara excelled at memory games. Given that her memory was photographic, most games and puzzles felt like a light stroll to her. She could solve Rubik's Cubes blindfolded at age six. She never lost a game of  _ Battleship _ against her dad. One of her favorite board games was  _ Guess Who _ , a game where the goal was to describe characters by their facial features to narrow down which one your opponent had secretly picked. Dad always said it was a lot like a police lineup. Barbara never forgot a face; she never lost a game.

"Anthony Marchetti," Barbara said confidently.

The man froze again, and this time the room fell utterly still and silent. Barbara clenched at her body as he stared, ignoring the shame she felt from his gaze.

One of the ways Batman loved to scare his perps was to narrate their lives. He would study their case files, memorizing each fact about them so that when he finally cornered them, he could list their names, birthdates, and every police-recorded incident they'd ever been arrested for, right down to minor infractions and misdemeanors. Bruce explained it was as if that way, Batman was omnipotent. He knew almost everything about someone just by looking at them. Everyone knew that about Batman, and they knew those who worked with him had the same strange ability.

Barbara had become very good at it.

"Anthony Marchetti," Barbara restarted, "A.K.A.  _ 'Little Italy' _ Marchetti of the Guzzo crime family of Gotham. Born February seventeenth, nineteen eighty-six. Suspected on multiple counts of murder, extortion, racketeering, and sex trafficking. That definitely explains the sex club. Misdiagnosed with achondroplasia at a young age. Earned the nickname for his Sicilian heritage and unusually small stature."

Marchetti sat completely still in his chair, a mouthful of steak tucked into his cheek like a chipmunk. His eyes turned nervously to Catwoman.

Barbara continued, turning to look at the larger man: "Jimmy  _ 'Mister Z' _ McCallahan, A.K.A. one-time Gotham Boxing Association heavyweight champion  _ 'Sandman McCallahan' _ . Known for accidentally killing Morris  _ 'The Nailer' _ Taylor in the ring during a prize fight. Born August second, nineteen seventy-eight. Suffers from a rare case of semi-narcolepsy that makes him half asleep at all tim—"

_ "—One of the fuckin' Batman's little cult members is your fuckin' sidekick?!" _

In a flash, Tony drew the bloody knife, pointed it at Catwoman, and spit steak onto his plate. He hopped atop the dinner table and stormed across its surface, his face twisted in utter, horrid rage.

Barbara balked. "I'm  _ not _ Catwoman's sidek—"

Marchetti ignored her:  _ "—You brought Batman's little weird-ass cultist bitch into my motherfuckin' club?!" _ he screamed as he kicked an empty wine glass across the room, shattering it against the far wall.  _ "Are you fuckin' insane?!" _

Catwoman padded the air with her hands. "Now now, Tony, let's mind our tempers. Batgirl's here to play!"

_ "The fuck she is!" _ Tony said nervously, suddenly realizing a horrifying fact. "Oh, shit!  _ Shit! _ This means the Bat's on his way here! No way I'm getting all my bones smashed apart by that...  _ thing _ just because you tricked  _ her _ into coming here!"

The room seemed to grow small, hot, and tense. Everyone was at least as nervous as Marchetti. Catwoman had no escape from her chair at the foot of the table, and Marchetti was looming over her with a bloody knife — nobody got away clean from a knife fight, even when the attacker was less than five feet tall. A few of the other gangsters in the room had guns tucked away under the table, and they drew them now, looking at the shadows for the phantom Bat-demon to appear. Marchetti gestured wildy with the knife as he ranted, and Barbara saw the malice in his body language. Marchetti would jump into Catwoman's chair and stab her to death while everyone watched. Then they'd remember Barbara was there, too.

But what actually happened was as soothing as a ladle of water on a hot sauna stone.

Catwoman stood from her dining chair, and for the first time, Barbara saw her for what she truly was. For one, she was completely nude save for her mask, of course: her heavy breasts spilled out from behind her arms, swaying as she rose from her seat. More importantly, she was undeniably sexy, but Barbara immediately noticed this came from more than just her nakedness. She looked up at Tony with a demure, theatrical pout, cocked a hip, and made a dismissive gesture, leaving all of her curves on display as she posed. Then, in a flash, she twirled away, denying him the view of her breasts and offering a glance at her ass instead, like a pinup model that was too bratty to hold still and pose for the camera. Her backside creased neatly as she crossed her arms and pouted.

"Oh, Tony. You're  _ so paranoid! _ " Catwoman grumbled, ignoring the small, threatening man. "The Bat's not coming for  _ you _ ."

Marchetti stared down at her from his perch atop the dinner table — Catwoman was easily over a head taller than the small man on more even ground — but his body language instantly softened. His grip on the knife eased, and his lungs sighed out all their air as his eyes studied Catwoman's body movements like a hypnotized serpent before a snakecharmer.

_ "Woah," _ Barbara whispered.

"Yeah!? What makes you so sure?" Marchetti asked as he gestured with the knife, unaware that he was completely under her control.

Barbara tried to keep her eyes away from Catwoman, but even she couldn't; all the room's eyes were fixed on The Gotham Alley Cat. The sensuality in her movement was so subtle yet so well rehearsed that no one would know what she was doing unless they looked beyond her skin. It was a stage-ready, perfectly-rehearsed routine: deliver a line; make a perfectly sexy, teasing pose; then, pull away, and leave them all aching for more. Everyone was completely distracted — if she wanted to, Catwoman could steal a gun and fire enough times to kill everyone twice before they knew what hit them.

"Well, you're a legit businessman, aren't you?" she said, posing delicately again, instantly compelling attention. "Besides, I took down her other backup. And at an  _ explosively _ high cost to me, by the way. What's more, she hasn't told anyone else she's here. She's on a personal gig. Solo."

As if released from a trance, or held more tightly in one, Marchetti relaxed even more. "I don't trust her," he grumbled, still pointing with the knife, "and I  _ don't trust you _ if you think you can pull off... whatever you're pulling."

"You worry too much,  _ Big Guy _ ," Catwoman purred as she strolled around the chair, out of Marchetti's reach. "Is this the face of a girl who wants to get you in trouble?" She squeezed her breasts together with her elbows and hung them over the chair's dark wooden seatback, showing them proudly to Tony as she rested her chin across the bridge of her fingers. Marchetti's eyes dipped to look. He cracked a smile, and in the distracted moment Barbara spotted a half-dozen openings where Catwoman could have stolen the knife and gutted him with it.

Barbara's lips peeled slowly apart as her jaw sunk — this was Catwoman’s power.

It didn't hurt that Catwoman was unnaturally good to look at: she was at once as long and postured as a dancer, as thick at the bust and hips as a lingerie model, and as fit as any track and field olympian. She looked like a wrestler squeezed into a stripper's body, muscles and curves each struggling to be more noticeable. Her breasts were both round and heavy, and they swayed in a way that held even Barbara's eyes for a bit too long. Catwoman was undeniably beautiful, and Barbara conceded that the catsuit she wore was all her. If anything, it was the kryptonite that helped keep the utter sex appeal of her naked body from overpowering everyone around her.

"Now, like I said: Batgirl is here to play," Catwoman said as she stepped away from the table and sauntered heel-over-toe towards Barbara in a carefully practiced runway walk. "That was the deal, right?"

"Wait... what?" Barbara muttered quietly.

Barbara watched every eye in the room drop down to the jiggles of Catwoman's naked bottom as she strutted confidently away from them. Barbara found everything about Catwoman both horribly demeaning and undeniably powerful. Her body language was as effective as mind control. Rather than as a weakness or something belittling, Catwoman utterly owned the room with her femininity.

In short, she was everything the shy, blushing, blustering Barbara was not.

"You do want to  _ play _ with me..." Catwoman said as she slid in behind Barbara, casually wrapping an arm around her waist, and squeezing a soft breast against her back. She purred into Barbara's ear:

_ "...Don't you, Kitten?" _

Barbara couldn't answer. She squirmed uncomfortably at Catwoman's touch. Again, her body was so surprisingly warm next to hers. How was she not freezing cold? How could she be so comfortable with all the hungry eyes crawling over her skin?

She remembered the note Catwoman had left with the doorman:  _ Play nice. _ A silent chill shook Barbara as she realized she was being blackmailed. Whatever "show" Catwoman had planned as secondary collateral for the sale of the notebook, Batgirl was about to become part of it. Given the place they were in, it wasn't hard to imagine what it could be about.

_ Oh, God, no... _ Barbara thought in despair.

"Ey, boass," a deep, booming voice suddenly said: Mister Z's voice. His eyes were squinted so tight by the fat shape of his face that it even  _ looked _ like he was asleep. Nobody expected him to speak, but his voice filled the room like it was coming from stereo speakers.

"Yeah, Z," Marchetti replied without looking at him. "What is it?"

"She knows I's used ta be a boxer, boass," the big man said to his small boss. "I like dis goil."

McCallahan was a caricature of all things inner-city mobster: big and round and soft spoken with the most stereotypical South Gotham accent Barbara had ever heard. It seemed to give Tony pause for some reason, like he was some big strong monk from the gangster monastery mumbling ancient wiseguy wisdoms.

Tony smiled, and the knife finally settled at his side. He pointed with his finger instead of the bloody, serrated blade. "My man Z likes her. The Cat likes her.  _ Fine _ ," he conceded.

"There's my Big Guy," Catwoman said from over Barbara's shoulder. The room settled again: forks clinked against plates, wineglasses were sipped, voices mumbled. Most importantly, the guns were stowed beneath the table once again.

"But your ass is on the line, Kitty Cat," Tony said, pointing again before finally laying the knife down next to his plate as he returned to his seat. He vaulted down onto the raised platform that placed him high enough in the chair to eat comfortably. "You're lucky I like that big, round ass so much, you know that?"

"Keep sweet-talking me like that and maybe I'll sit it on your face, Big Guy," Catwoman purred.

Everyone in the room — Marchetti, his lazy dinner table decoration girls, Catwoman, even the big man — chuckled warmly. Tony seemed to squirm at the idea, unsure if he was frightened or aroused by Catwoman's proposition. So he laughed louder, and so did everyone else in return. Barbara stood still, red heat blooming over her cheeks, trying to recoil away from Catwoman's grasp.

_ "Roll with it, Kitten," _ she whispered as she slid around in front of Barbara.  _ "Don't choke." _ Catwoman strolled back toward the table.

"Alright, we still got a deal," Tony said as the laughter died down. "But look at this girl, she's nervous as a fuckin' whore in church over here."

Barbara stifled the taste of bile in her throat. Catwoman paused at the foot of the table and posed with a hand on her hip. She glanced over her shoulder at Barbara, posing and smiling. "Tony's right, Kitten. You need to loosen up. Show us something nice to make us remember what dirty perverts we all are."

"As if I'd forget," Marchetti joked as he glared at Catwoman's ass, commanding the laughter in the room again. Catwoman turned her back to him, slapped a cheek of her buttocks, then lifted it up and let it fall so Marchetti could watch it jiggle. He winced and bit a knuckle at the sight, as did the other men at the table.  _ Oohs _ and  _ Aahs _ mingled with the groans of amazement and catcalls.

Barbara had never felt more like a piece of meat in her life just watching Catwoman. Marchetti and his pigs triggered a deep instinct inside her that made her feel small, weak, and afraid, and her nakedness multiplied it. But all of it seemed to bolster Catwoman. Basking in the attention her sexuality gave her was her metahuman power.

Any courage Barbara might have had left deflated like a hot air balloon crashing to the ground. She glanced at some of Marchetti's whores sitting bare-assed on their chairs at the dinner table. One of them looked at her and rolled her eyes. Barbara clutched even more tightly at her privates.

_ "Come on!" _ Marchetti groaned from his high chair. "Let's see what you're hiding there, sweetie." Everyone agreed.

Violence — that, Barbara was familiar with. She could outroll and outstrike almost anyone. She very much wanted to squash the feelings of shame inside her gut with a good ass-kicking. But again, she thought of Catwoman's note:  _ "Play nice." _ With a fight off the table, Barbara wasn't as powerful as she thought. Batgirl was dangerous because she had surprise physicality on her side. When the physical acts suddenly shifted to  _ 'act sexy' _ and ' _ be slutty _ ', she had nothing to give.

_ "Come on!" _ Marchetti grumbled "Show us something! Hey! What do I win if I guess whether the carpets match the drapes?"

Barbara scowled as the room erupted into laughter again. She whipped her red hair over her shoulder as if trying to hide it from them. Heat boiled in her chest, and exploded.

"Don't know, Marchetti. What do I win if I guess whether all of these girls got here in a shipping container, barely know your name, and all speak Russian really well?" Barbara quipped.

A cold, nervous jeer seeped over the mahogany and leather. "Oh, very clever, little Bat," Tony replied. "I've heard it all before. These are good girls, they all applied here for the privilege to work with me. You know how hard it is to keep a high ratio of women to men at a club like this? I run a legit business where people can come to enjoy themselves. Check with the city. This is no Iceberg Lounge."

"No, you could never build a  _ real _ club like Cobblepot," Barbara carried on. "Did you build a sex club instead because you ran out of luck picking up girls your size at the playground?"

"Hey, you watch your  _ fuckin' mouth, Bat-Bitch!" _ Marchetti barked, banging a fist on the table. The long, bloody steak knife rattled against the plate, and the room simmered again.

"Easy, Tony," Catwoman said, gesturing for calm and making sure to arch her back to accentuate her chest as she did. "You didn't expect her to just roll over, did you? This is  _ The Batgirl! _ She's a  _ tough cookie _ . Fights just as good as me."

Barbara blushed at the lie, remembering how quickly Catwoman had taken her down. A sore spot on her stomach ached from when she was kicked from a rooftop by a high-heeled boot. The back of her head throbbed a bit from when she'd been floored in the space of a blink.

"Yeah? The fuck does that have to do with anything?" Marchetti growled.

"It means she's a  _ fighter _ , Big Guy!" Catwoman purred, "And right now, she can't put her dukes up because... well, her hands are  _ otherwise occupied _ at the moment."

A small chuckle lit the room. Catwoman continued, and Barbara awed again at the way she could work a room full of people.

"So now, she's fighting the only way she can — looks like her tongue is as sharp as her punch. But she doesn't get that there's nothing she can hurt here with either of those," she concluded, laying Barbara's entire emotional laundry out on the dinner table amongst the lipstick-stained port glasses and bloodied white plates.

"Yeah," Marchetti conceded again. "Just tell her to watch that smart  _ fuckin' _ mouth."

Barbara's lips pursed, and Catwoman twisted the knife. "Know what your problem is, Kitten?" she asked, only looking at Barbara after the fact.  _ "You're not scary." _

"Funny," Barbara scowled, "weren't you the one running away from me earlier?"

"That seven foot tall bat-creature you work for?  _ He's scary. _ Even when he doesn't try to be. And you, little girl crouching in a private dining room, embarrassed to show your body in the nude because you're  _ so scared of what everyone will think? _ " Catwoman paused for effect:

"Not. Scary."

The room chuckled long and low, howling at Catwoman's private comedy roast of the scared little red-haired girl in the Bat mask. Barbara curled inward. Her insides even curled inward; all of her guts felt like they were absorbing into a vortex. She felt far too many eyes on her, and felt too much shame. Catwoman was right, and the sting was more painful than a whip crack or a kick or a claw. What would Dick think of her now? Would Bruce ever be able to look her in the eye again?

"Y-you aren't scary either," Barbara mumbled.

"No, Kitten, I'm not," Catwoman admitted, strutting proudly between Barbara's sight line with Marchetti and flaunting her body for all its worth. "I don't need to be."

She sauntered up to Barbara and pressed her breasts into her shoulders as she leered down at her — she had a height advantage even without the high-heeled boots. It wasn't until then that Barbara felt something ice cold on Catwoman's skin for the first time.

"You know what I am instead, kitten?" Catwoman asked. Her eyes darted down for a moment, and Barbara's reluctantly followed. Sandwiched between their bodies, Barbara saw what the cold sensation was:

An anodized titanium Batarang, neatly folded in half. The one Catwoman had caught on the Clarefield rooftop.

"Why would I waste time being scary?" she asked everyone over her shoulder as she stepped right into Batgirl's personal space and asserted her dominance.

Barbara looked back up into Catwoman's eyes: she winked. Distracting everyone, Catwoman reached behind her body and spread her buttocks apart, giving everyone a plain view of her feminine lips and the pinkness inside. Then, she answered her own question:

_ "I'm the hottest pussy in Gotham." _

The room erupted into cheers as everyone watched Catwoman looming over Batgirl, their bodies pressed together, their lips just a breath away, Catwoman exposing her sex proudly to everyone at the dinner table. She released her spread cheeks, and they jiggled for everyone's pleasure.

"Let the Kitty Cat show begin!" Catwoman proclaimed, gazing seductively over her shoulder..

Marchetti smiled and nodded with satisfaction as his men cheered. "Fifteen minutes, Kitty," he said, nodding at the bearded man with the computer who quietly pressed a key on his console.

Catwoman was so much more than the case file about her. The men in the room wanted to have her. The women watched her in mixtures of excitement and jealousy. She was counting on all of it. Marchetti bit his knuckle and licked his lips, then howled at his good fortune as she shook her round, thick ass for everyone.

But Barbara — between suddenly being nominated from frightened girl to stripper and feeling the cold metal kiss of the hidden Batarang pressed against her skin — froze in terror.

"I... I'm..." she started to say.

_ "Shut up and take it," _ Catwoman whispered over the raucous crowd as she distracted them with her body. Barbara reached a hand up from her groin and slid the Batarang under the arm that was concealing her breasts. With Catwoman's body as a screen, nobody would see, but she was fearful of uncovering herself anyway.

_ "What... what the hell are you doing?" _ Barbara whispered.

_ "Why are you freezing up?" _ Catwoman hissed.

_ "I'm naked in a room full of mobsters!" _ Barbara hissed back.

_ "You're a sexy little package, Kitten!" _ she whispered.  _ "Own it! And be ready with the throwing knife." _

Barbara's brow quivered as her head swam from trying to understand Catwoman's motives. Did her instruction from the note to  _ "Play nice" _ include whatever was happening right now?

"Know what you need, kitten?" Catwoman resumed, addressing the room as she turned her back to Barbara, satisfied at her secret delivery. "A lesson from Mama Cat about how pointless it is  _ hiding what you've got _ ."

Barbara didn't miss the double meaning. She squeezed the hidden Batarang tightly to her cold, frightened breast and started subtly working it towards her armpit while she had Catwoman's body as cover.

"Now we're speakin' my language, Mama Kitty!" urged Marchetti as the room cheered with him. His eyebrows bounced at Barbara and he grinned hungrily. The fear in Barbara's stomach swirled.

Catwoman reached a hand up and over her shoulder to caress Barbara's face. "What do you think, hmm?" she asked, obviously feeling Barbara manipulate the Batarang against her back.  _ "You ready, Kitten?" _

Barbara was lucky the emergency Batarangs were low-profile and foldable. Cowering behind Catwoman for cover, she released the blade from her armpit and made a blind, one-handed catch behind her back. Sighing quietly, she flipped her scarlet hair theatrically as an excuse to tuck the small weapon into her cowl. She smiled, confident that she'd got the job done, and clenched her fists, ready to make the surprise attack.

_ That can't just be what this whole thing was... can it? _ Barbara thought.  _ She wants help taking these guys down? _ Catwoman would make a strange ally, but at least Barbara knew that she could kick ass in a fight. She relished the chance to break Marchetti's arms, but wondered how she'd manage against the ogre next to him. The hunger for a fight burned in her mouth anyway.

"Yeah. Alright," Barbara said, emphasizing the double-speak in her voice.  _ "I'm ready." _

"Great! Let's get started!"

Catwoman twirled a little pirouette to snuggle up behind Barbara leaving her exposed for a moment, and her hands whipped to cover her body again. Marchetti and his flock cheered momentarily, then groaned.

"Come on, move the hands!" he barked from his high chair. Everyone else urged her on in protest.

"Wait, no! What?" Barbara whined, covering herself. "I thought... you mean—"

"—Time to show off, Kitten!" Catwoman giggled.

She shoved Barbara forward, nudging her to the foot of the long dining table, further into the light where everyone could see. Barbara shriveled from the eyes of the dinner tribunal, and winced from the touch of Catwoman's naked body pressing against her from behind. She had expected to jump onto the table with Catwoman and fight her way to the front of it, cracking skulls and blinding eyes.

"Okay everybody," Catwoman purred. "Here's my Kitten!"

The room erupted in cheers.

In the spotlight at the foot of the dinner table in Anthony Marchetti's private dining room, Barbara felt like the lone bowling pin to a winning spare. The small, wiry Anthony Marchetti was the bowler at the top of the lane, staring down his target with a hungry leer. Behind her, Catwoman was the dark pit the bowling pins dropped into, the inevitable reality that she'd be set up again if she fell. There was no escape.

"Alright, Kitten," Catwoman moaned into Barbara's ear just loud enough for everyone to hear, "how about we turn on the headlights before we rev up the engine, hmm?"

Barbara's eyes narrowed, and her brow quivered. "What?"

She could feel Catwoman's eyes roll. "Show us your tits, Kitten."

Barbara felt herself blush bright red as everyone cheered for Catwoman, who seemed to drink in the attention like chilled champagne. All the eyes in the room were drinking Barbara in turn, consuming her, and yet she wouldn't simply dissolve away like she wished she could. Her lips quivered in cornered fear, and she chewed them shut so no one would see.

"I'm... uh..." Barbara stalled. Suddenly, she felt lips brushing against her ear.

_ "Do you want the notebook or not?" _ Catwoman warned in a barely audible whisper. Fear haunted Barbara's spine. Marchetti's mobsters cheered.

Catwoman rested her chin on Barbara's shoulder and pressed her warm body even tighter into Barbara's back, making her flinch uncomfortably. "Oh, fine. Let me teach you something sweetie," Catwoman said in a theatrically condescending tone. "You see, boys? Boys like it when you  _ show them your tits _ . And, if that documentary I watched last night during my bath was telling the truth, lots of girls do, too."

Everyone laughed. Two of the whores at the table juggled their fake plastic breasts with their hands and kissed at Barbara, and the crowd cheered. Barbara felt equal parts stripper and a state fair horse, both a bawdy display object and an animal valued for its parts.

"Wait, I'm not... I don't..." Barbara said.

Catwoman pressed on with a smarmy schoolteacher's voice, snuggling the desperate, naked Barbara from behind as she lectured. "And I heard... that when you show boys your tits? It makes their..." she paused and looked around nervously, as though she might get in trouble if someone heard what she said next.

_ "...It makes their dicks get hard!" _ Catwoman said in a hush, her voice dripping with false modesty.

Marchetti doubled over with laughter at Catwoman's embarrassing farce, his own face growing as red as Barbara's. The massive Mister Z stood silently next to him, perhaps dreaming of something a fraction as funny.

"Now, when their..." Catwoman whispered again before continuing in her normal voice,  _ "...when their dicks get all long and hard? _ That makes them think about having  _ sex! _ You do know what that is, right?"

What did that mean? Sex with Marchetti's gangsters? If this was some test to see if Barbara would snap, Catwoman trying to coerce her into being a sex toy for a room of greasy gangsters was a sure way to do it. Barbara remembered the women on the main floor being used up like filthy dumpsters, bound and tied with ropes, slathered in slimy ooze erupting from red, ugly phalluses. She'd die before it got that far.

"V-very funny," Barbara whispered quietly as she shriveled away from the eyes locked onto her body.

"Sex is what makes boys like Marchetti here feel like  _ they're the ones in control _ ," Catwoman purred. "But we're the ones who are running the show here, aren't we?" Barbara's eyes froze at that, searching for a hidden meaning.

Catwoman carried on before she could give it much thought. "So, let's go, Kitten!" she said. "Headlights on!" Gentle, velvety fingertips caressed the forearm Barbara clutched across her breasts. Catwoman's hot breath tickled her ear.

A memory flashed to life: a girl named Connie Xu who Barbara met in senior year phys ed class. Connie had forgotten to wear her bra to the gym one day. Everyone laughed at that poor girl, her ill-fitting New Gotham High tanktop leaving nothing about her puffy nipples and wobbly breasts to the imagination. Barbara had saved her that day, taking her back to the locker room and lending her a bra, giving her a cheer-up speech about being tough. They both laughed about it, and stayed friends after. "You saved my life out there," Connie had said.

Nobody was here to save Barbara.

"Watch, Kitten. I'll show you," Catwoman said as she embraced Barbara tightly from behind, squeezing the forearm holding her breasts. "See, boys like to be  _ teased. _ They're all boneheads that way, really. They like to  _ ache _ and  _ squirm _ . And it just so happens? We have the tools to make them do just that."

Catwoman's hand pulled on Barbara's arm ever so slightly.

"They want to see all of you, but you're not going to give it to them the way  _ they _ want," Catwoman continued. "You're going to do it the way  _ you _ want. Nice and  _ slow _ ..."

Barbara felt her arm get pulled even higher. The undersides of her breasts started to swell beneath, like droplets on a cold glass growing heavier, fuller. Drawn down by their own weight. Barbara breathed in fast, nervous sighs. "W-wait," she said meekly.

"That's it," Catwoman urged, the hunger in her own voice becoming apparent, "look at them! See how they're squirming?  _ They couldn't look away _ even if they wanted to."

Catwoman was right: every eye was fixed on Barbara now. Marchetti had put aside his steak, and started chewing his lips instead. Another inch of her breasts slowly slid out from under her forearm, and a sudden cold sweat made her hands clammy.

_ "They're all yours, Kitten," _ Catwoman purred. "They can't help themselves now. Their poor, helpless little dicks are all getting hard  _ just looking at you _ .  _ Nice and slow." _

Barbara's breasts slowly oozed out from under her forearm's hold. She felt a deep, utter embarrassment simmering in her neck as she realized the truth Catwoman had come to show on her  _ 'Stage' _ here at the sex club — that even Barbara could use her body to control men if she wanted to. That Catwoman and Batgirl weren't so different. That at least Catwoman wasn't ashamed like she was.

Something more lurked there, just beneath the shame, as Barbara realized the truth — her own arousal. That only made it all worse.

"I bet  _ Little Italy _ is sprouting a big, hard  _ cannoli _ between his legs right now," Catwoman growled in a syrupy tone.

"God damn right. With some nice cream in the middle for you," Marchetti grumbled, loosening his belt. "Damn, look at the tits on this Bat-chick." The droplets grew fuller. Barbara's breasts squeezed lower. Marchetti's eyes grew wider. Barbara swallowed the hot, coppery saliva pooling under her tongue.

Suddenly, Catwoman's voice — not a theatrical voice, but what Barbara immediately recognized as her real, true voice — whispered a quiet secret into Barbara's ear. And it was an angry, vengeful secret:

_ "Anthony Marchetti stole the notebook from me," _ she hissed.


	4. The Show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A spy changes Catwoman's plans; Barbara explores her feelings as the stakes get higher.

Barbara stifled a look of utter shock.

_ "And you're right. All these girls? Trafficked from who knows where,"  _ Catwoman whispered on.  _ "I don't like pimps. And I definitely can't stand this smug little shit." _

Everything suddenly made sense.

Batgirl fights Catwoman, who disappears into the sex club with the notebook. She wants to make a sale. Doesn't matter; Marchetti's goons lift it from her. Catwoman makes a deal to get it back. A deal to show off her 'sexy new sidekick'. Batgirl shows up just as planned, held tightly under the weight of the notebook. Barbara had scanned the room dozens of times; wherever it was, Marchetti was keeping it out of sight. Catwoman had shown up with a plan, and despite all her cleverness, that plan had failed.

Barbara looked over her shoulder and parted her lips as if to give Catwoman a kiss. The table moaned and whistled at the two in anticipation. Barbara's breasts threatened to spill out from under her arm, and Catwoman leaned down so the two of them could taste each others' mouths. From his throne, Anthony Marchetti smiled at his playthings.

Barbara rested her lips against Catwoman's neck and pretended to kiss it, sneaking in a whisper as she did:  _ "This is why you told him I was your sidekick? How dare you drag me into this!" _

Catwoman feigned a moan and turned Barbara's chin so she could fake a neck kiss of her own.  _ "Had to promise him a show. He gets to watch Cat and Kitten play. I get the notebook back." _

Barbara's skin goosefleshed at the touch of Catwoman's warm, pillowy lips — the show really was beginning. She moaned involuntarily as the sudden sensation made her flinch, and turned to fake another kiss on her neck:  _ "Except it's not yours — mmh — where is it?" _

Catwoman faked another neck kiss back. Barbara felt a tongue beneath her ear, and desperately stifled another soft moan. Catwoman's fake kisses didn't feel fake.  _ "If I knew that — aah — I'd have killed him already." _

As the tension and heat between the two built up, the occasional cheer and moan bubbled around the dinner table. "Yeah, look at 'em go," Barbara heard Marchetti moan. "Now we're talkin'."

Batgirl faked a neck kiss.  _ "I should kick your ass." _

Catwoman "faked" a neck kiss.  _ "Help me kick his ass and you'll get your chance." _

"Yeah, keep doin' that," Marchetti grumbled.

Barbara noticed him reaching beneath the table, his arm pumping up and down. Obviously aroused at the sight of two beautiful, mostly-naked women necking and massaging each other in his dining room, he shuffled his black dress slacks under his thighs to masturbate more comfortably. The other men around him, never having pants to begin with, simply started stroking themselves in agreement. Or, their whores did it for them.

Barbara burned inside with a realization. Anger, shame, embarrassment, seduction, arousal, objectification. This was the mud Catwoman wanted to drag her through: she wanted to humiliate Batgirl, to make sure she was never feared in Gotham City to begin with. She wouldn't be vengeance, and she wouldn't be the night. She'd be the Gotham City underworld's masturbation fantasy.

Catwoman shamelessly licked Barbara's neck now, and her body flinched at the sensation of wet tongue and soft lips.  _ "Come on, Kitten," _ she whispered.  _ "Keep them distracted. Enjoy it a little. Show them what you can do." _

Images danced behind Barbara's eyes. Batman's disappointed scowl, full of regret for giving her a chance to serve alongside him. Robin's guilty pout, the frown full of the shame of letting her talk him into going it alone. Alfred's silent, dignified gaze, which could easily hide the shame behind his eyes. Her father's utter shock once the notebook got out and somebody somewhere got the upper hand on Gotham's last, best hope to get criminals like Marchetti in prison.

The notebook. That was all that mattered.

As Catwoman licked her neck, Barbara glared at Anthony Marchetti with fake bedroom eyes and let her breasts slowly slide all the way out from under her forearm.

"There's my Kitten," Catwoman purred.

Barbara cringed inwardly at the thought of eyes on her naked breasts. In training, she sought physical perfection in the gym as Batman taught her; in private, she was very self-conscious about her body. She'd always thought her breasts were too small to be noticeable, but too big for her to be taken seriously. She felt like her nipples sat too wide and too high, and that muscle gained from bench press reps and obstacle vaults had only made it worse. She was nervous about the chance of being intimate with Dick, and felt a sort of twisted relief when he'd turned her down — at least she wouldn't have to share an anxious moment with him and all her insecurities about her body.

Instead, she would have an anxious moment with Catwoman.

Everyone hooted and awed at the shy, naked girl in the Bat mask. Catwoman moaned with theatric sensuality. Marchetti whispered a curse, but couldn't spit out the word from excitement — he seemed very pleased, and that made Barbara feel ill. Even the towering Mister Z whistled and covered himself a bit more tightly. One of the mobsters started stroking himself a lot more quickly, and one of the women next to him hooked a leg over the arm of the chair and started rubbing herself in agreement. The sounds of wet stroking eventually caught up with the gasps.

"Wow, Kitten." Catwoman purred, "I knew you had a nice pair under there, but...  _ wow _ . I may be a little jealous."

Barbara wasn't sure if Catwoman was playing to the crowd, flattering her, or just trying to get under her skin again. The thought of the room full of people gawking mixed a cocktail of emotions in Barbara’s gut — she couldn't ignore that one of those was power. But she swallowed the disgust that came along with that power, and used it.

"Take a good, long look, Marchetti," Barbara growled, cradling her breasts together like she'd seen Catwoman do. "You'll need to stroke it to a thousand of your shipping container whores before you ever see anything this good."

Catwoman laughed heartily and stepped beside Barbara for a moment, proudly displaying her own larger, heavier breasts. Marchetti's goons hooted as if they agreed. He ignored them.

"Take the other hand away," he ordered.

Barbara secretly gnashed her teeth in disgust, and the words sent a flustered heat over her body. She forced a seductive grin as she glanced down at the palm she had covering her crotch, and kept her response short and sweet:

"You show me yours, I'll show you mine,  _ Little Italy _ ."

The room rumbled at the challenge, the naivety of this dumb red-haired girl who'd dare challenge Anthony Marchetti in the throne room of his own palace. He seemed to swell in the attention, and just as Barbara hoped, he played into the gambit.

"Oh yeah, Bat-Chick? Here you go," he offered proudly, standing in his chair. Barbara had seen more penises in the past ten minutes that she had in her entire life thus far, and his was just another meat stick at this point, hard and veiny and red. For a small man, Marchetti's seemed fairly normal-sized. She wouldn't give him that, though.

"Very cute little guy you have there,  _ Big Guy _ ," Batgirl groaned disappointedly. "Anybody else got anything  _ bigger _ for me? Come on, boys, who's in the audience tonight?"

Marchetti's men stood enthusiastically from their seats — even the man with the banker's briefcase — and Barbara ignored the revulsion she felt at their completely unsensual bodies. They presented a bouquet of various-sized erections over the tabletop, like disgusting knights making a lewd pledge together at their castle. Some of the whores stroked their men as they stood, the wet sounds echoing over the room. She pretended to peruse them as though shopping for the best one, tapping her finger on her chin in hopes no one would see the embarrassment flushing her skin. But she swallowed the unease, satisfied that her strategy had worked: now, none of them could reach under the table for their guns.

"Well, that just won't do at all," Barbara pouted. "I mean, what makes any of you guys think you can stick those..."

Fighting every instinct in her bones, Barbara slowly pulled her hand away from her crotch, revealing her feminine lips.

"...inside this?" Barbara finished, revealing the tight slit between her legs. 

She was smooth, clean, and perfectly shaved — she'd done so in the shower just that morning. She liked to have the secret knowledge that she looked nice down there, but she especially did so before she went out on patrols with Dick. It was a silly, misplaced ritual that she used to help herself feel sexy around him. It was pathetic, and she hated herself for it. And now, she was showing that shame to everyone.

_ "Fuck me," _ Marchetti groaned, masturbating himself slowly as he stared at Barbara's pussy.

"Not even if you begged, Marchetti," Barbara growled, hoping her voice wouldn’t crack. She spread her stance a bit and cocked her hip to the side, offering everyone a better view. They seemed to respond, and she saw various hands start stroking faster.

"Guess you'll never know if the carpet matches the drapes, Big Guy," Catwoman cooed as she settled in close again, wrapping her breasts around Barbara's arm. She ran her fingertips dangerously close to Barbara's inner thigh. "I like a girl who knows how to keep a secret."

"You a virgin, Bat-Chick?" Anthony Marchetti asked as he stroked his sticky erection.

Barbara was, but she hid the thought in the back of her head to keep it from him. Her stomach turned at the absolutely unwanted image her mind manifested of him penetrating her, but she took the energy and spat it back in his face.

"What I am is tight enough to break your little  _ cannoli _ clean off, Marchetti," she growled.

As the crowd howled at the fiery Batgirl, Barbara arched her back to fake necking with Catwoman again. The piercing comment seemed to land a little bit more softly. When she'd arrived, Batgirl was defiant and hostile. Now, Batgirl was defiant and hostile, but she was naked. She'd given Marchetti what he wanted, as she suspected most people did, so that was all that mattered. Barbara moaned theatrically and gritted her teeth through the fear as she considered her fate. She touched an ear of Catwoman's mask and moaned, and Catwoman caressed her in return.

_ "Ooh! — What the hell is the game plan here?" _ Barbara whispered. She moaned again, partly for show, and partly as a reaction.

Catwoman grabbed Barbara gently by the throat and sucked on her ear in response.  _ "Aah — I'm waiting on my intel to give me the location of the notebook." _

Barbara's fingertips caressed Catwoman's ass, and feigned nibbles on the arch of her ear.  _ "Mmh — S-stop kissing me. What intel?" _

Catwoman flinched, and raked her fingernails gently over Barbara's breast.  _ "Ooh — No. And, _ that  _ intel." _

A secret  _ look-over-there _ gesture between the two of them brought them to massage and lick each other while switching places in an erotic dance. Catwoman's hands moved Barbara into a pose where they could both simulate rubbing and kissing while also casting hidden glances at Catwoman's next secret:

A small, silent black cat stalking around the floor of the dining room. Searching.

Barbara's eyes darted away, and she faked licking Catwoman's neck.  _ "What is that thing doing in here?" _ she whispered.

_ "She's my intel," _ Catwoman answered.

Barbara had seen case files of the aftermath of Catwoman's burglaries in almost impossible-to-breach scenarios. One came to mind: a museum with multi-tiered security systems and laser-detection grids with gaps too small to slip through. That one made sense now — she'd never considered the grids weren't too small for an  _ actual cat _ to slip through.

_ "And she's almost found it. Keep. Marchetti. Distracted." _

Barbara's stomach churned at the reminder that she was much more likely to die of bullet wounds before shame. It only made tactical sense that there should be some firepower in the room to protect Marchetti: the only question now was how much. She'd seen four guns drawn during his initial childish meltdown, but given that everyone was naked except for him, there were no shoulder or ankle holsters to count. Under the table was the only place to put a gun that made sense. Ten chairs on either side, five men on each side: at least ten shooters from two firing lines, not counting Marchetti and Z, unless they—

_ "—ahh! Knock it off," _ Barbara whispered as Catwoman interrupted her tactical analysis. She felt the tall, sultry woman nibble on her neck and caress the small of her back in just the right way.

_ "No," _ repeated Catwoman.  _ "They need to believe it or this show's over. Besides, aren't you enjoying it?" _ She gently traced a hand around Barbara's side and squeezed her breast with a whisper-light touch, causing Barbara to moan involuntarily.

_ "Aah — I'm starting — mmh! — to think this is more about your enjoyment," _ she replied, her hands shivering a bit as she touched Catwoman's waist and traced the angles of her wide, soft hips. The fact that she wondered for a moment if she actually was enjoying it turned her stomach even more: Barbara Gordon wasn't some lounge stripper, and she certainly wasn't a lesbian. She was a brilliant criminologist and, as Batgirl, she was a crusader. A manipulative woman in a catsuit couldn't make her forget who she was — except that, more than a few times tonight, she had.

They carried on for what felt like ages to Barbara. Catwoman's touch was carefully, intimately sensual, and her body was as warm as ever. In the frustration and shame behind keeping up the act, Barbara found the deep, distant hint of pleasure getting far closer to the surface than she liked. Catwoman knew the right spots to lick, the right pressure to nibble with, and the right way to touch. Not only was Catwoman very in tune with her sexuality, but that this was definitely not her first time doing any of the things she was doing. She had a practiced hand, and she enjoyed her work. Barbara pushed the thought away as she watched Catwoman's four-legged infiltrator out of the corner of her eye, and used the disgusting image of grunting, masturbating mobsters to take the edge off of Catwoman's decadent tease.

_ "Oh, shit," _ Catwoman suddenly whispered. A kiss on the neck.

_ "What?" _ A lick on the ear.

_ "The big guy has it." _ The soft touch of a warm nipple to a cold one.  _ "The _ actual  _ big guy." _

_ "Oh, shit," _ echoed Barbara. Fingers caressing a thigh.

That made sense — Marchetti would be a fool not to leave it with his enforcer. McCallahan was an ogre of a man, and the only thing keeping Catwoman from ripping Marchetti apart. Barbara made a silent note to herself, a tactical reminder to get her hands on it before Catwoman did, somehow. Suddenly, it struck Barbara that Mister Z was naked: he had no pockets, no sleeves.

_ "Wait... he has it where, exactly?" _

Catwoman's small, jet-black feline companion was almost invisible against the dark, warm hues of the wooden floor, and utterly silent. It sat patiently on the floor directly between Mister Z's legs, its tail twitching curiously as it looked up, its round yellow eyes darting between the huge man's crotch and Catwoman's gaze. Z stood in a daze, completely oblivious to the spy literally right under his nose.

It struck Barbara that his massive, notebook-sized hands were still folded across his groin, patiently covering his undoubtedly notebook-sized manhood.

_ "Oh, gross," _ Barbara whispered. A soft breath on the neck.

_ "Ugh, yuck," _ Catwoman agreed. A gentle bite on the earlobe.

The cat sat patiently between Z's legs, having completed its duties. It was obviously well-trained, and knew exactly how to find what it'd been taught to. But now, the job was done. The cat's expression grew confused at what to do next, and it began walking figure eights around Mister Z's massive feet.

_ "No, kitty," _ Catwoman whispered to herself. Her hands caressed Barbara's lower back again.

Maybe the cat couldn't hear. Maybe the whispers were too low, and the sounds of wet stroking and satisfied grunting were too loud. Maybe Catwoman's training wasn't as good as she thought it was. But now, the cat sat facing Mister Z and looked over its shoulder at Catwoman. Long, white teeth flashed as the cat yawned.

_ "No, no, no, kitty!" _ A nervous, tight squeeze around Barbara's waist.

The cat looked up at Mister Z's groin. It arched its back and swatted a black paw in the air at his manhood, then turned in place and sat back down. Small yellow eyes met Catwoman's, waiting for instructions. She could feel Catwoman's heartbeat pulsing in her chest as they held each other close. This cat was an important part of her plan, and that plan was about to go wrong as well.

_ "Oh shit." _ Fingernails dug into Barbara's hips.  _ "Get ready for a fight, Kitten." _

_ "Catwoman?" _ Barbara whispered nervously.  _ "What's the signal to stop that thing?!" _

Then, as if to answer the question, the cat spoke a short, whispering meow.

Barbara wondered whether she was feeling Catwoman's naked skin grow ice cold, or her own.

But nobody looked. Nobody heard.

_ "Come on, kitty, stay quiet," _ whispered Catwoman, whimpering a bit as she massaged Barbara's back and leaned down to lick her collarbone. The men interpreted the whine as a sensual moan of pleasure, and grunted in satisfaction as they stroked themselves eagerly. The whores, sitting next to their standing men, stroked and sucked at the bouquet of cocks Barbara had asked to see.

"Hell yeah," Marchetti grumbled as he stroked.

At this point, Barbara was in a full-on embrace with Catwoman. Their chests were pressed gently together, squishing their breasts flat when one of them didn't move into a position to show them off to Marchetti and his men. The two simulated moans and heavy foreplay to mask the whispers they shared in secret. Batman could have crashed through the roof and nobody would have looked away.

Again, the cat meowed. It was a short, silent whisper of a sound, to the cat's credit.  _ "Here's the notebook, mommy," _ it seemed to say. Again, nobody heard.

_ "Come on, kitty... mmh..." _ Barbara whispered, gently moaning as she grew distracted by Catwoman's tongue, knowing nobody would be watching her lips.

"Yeah, come on, Kitty!" echoed Marchetti as Barbara's eyes widened in shock — he'd heard her that time.

_ "Easy, Kitten," _ Catwoman purred comfortingly as she ran her fingertips through Barbara's hair, her voice dripping with double meaning. They were both lucky it was so easily mistaken as passion rather than a desperate plea to the actual cat on the floor two paces from Marchetti's chair.

Barbara had come too far to get caught by her own ineptitude again, and doubled back up on the show. She was a bit shorter, so her lips focused on Catwoman's neck, shoulders, and ears. Her arms naturally wrapped around the taller woman's waist, and she was doing everything she could to avoid grabbing Catwoman's ass outright. She performed the touches and pantomimed the kisses just enough to hold the illusion, but the phantom of arousal she felt simmering between her thighs was becoming very real. She did everything she could to ignore it — including watching the men being masturbated and sucked to the sight of her. Even that gave a strange, horrible feeling she didn't understand yet.

Another soft, whispering meow trickled through the symphony of grunts and strokes. Marchetti seemed to want to turn his head for a moment, but changed his mind as he watched his toys play with each other.

_ "Wait... mmh... wait..." _ Barbara whispered into Catwoman's deep, heavy cleavage.

Catwoman, on the other hand, had no such sapphic inhibitions — and probably not any inhibitions. Barbara felt like a melting popsicle against the heat of her body, and Catwoman's tongue was shamelessly trying to lick up the oozing, dribbling sweetness. Her hands and lips explored without fear: Barbara's neck was wet in warm streaks from her tongue, and her skin simmered from Catwoman's touch. Fingertips raked at the base of Barbara's cowl, finding the spot that sent shivers down her spine which, until moments ago, nobody else on the planet knew about. Catwoman grabbed a handful of her ass and squeezed, and Barbara found her hand tracing down to Catwoman's soft thighs in an almost involuntary response.

_ "Go on now, Kitten," _ Catwoman moaned aloud to her spy, and to Barbara.  _ "Go on now..." _

The cat turned in place, motioning to walk away. Then, it didn't.

_ "Go kitty... mmh... go kitty..." _ Barbara moaned as the men in the room groaned at the sight of feminine hands kneading feminine flesh.

"Fuck yeah, go Kitty!" Marchetti echoed. "Put this Bat-Chick on the table and eat her pussy for me, yeah?"

A chill shook Barbara to her core — she was already fighting through every wall in her mind to keep up what she was doing, and she absolutely  _ did not _ want to be part of a live sex show. A vision of Catwoman's face buried between her legs as everyone watched burned her cheeks scarlet red.

"I'm the showrunner here," Catwoman deflected, turning away from Barbara for a moment to scowl at Marchetti. "You just sit there and rub your  _ cannoli  _ like a good boy."

The defensive retort made Barbara wonder how much Catwoman really wanted to take this. Was it just her own pride simmering at being shouted at like a master to his dog? Did she want to keep toying with Barbara until she couldn't hold back? Catwoman returned her gaze to lock with Barbara's and leaned their foreheads together, their lips just a moment away. Her hands returned to Barbara's body and explored. Marchetti and his men ignored the slight by their sexy guest and continued watching their show.

Suddenly, the cat at Mister Z's feet reached up a paw to the man's huge leg, and patted at his calf. His eyes squinted in the candlelight, like a gigantic bear waking from hibernation. Slowly, the massive, sleepy ogre looked down at his feet.

Ever so slightly, the big man's eyes opened.

Catwoman's eyes widened in fear.

_ "Cat!" _ Barbara whispered over the sounds of grunting and stroking.  _ "We have to do som—mmh!" _

Catwoman tilted Barbara's chin up, and slid her tongue into her mouth.

From their encounters, Barbara was left with a number of sensations Catwoman had inflicted on her: a tender stomach where the cat burglar had kicked her from the top of a building, aching spots on her forearms where strikes were blocked. Then, there was the haunting taste of Catwoman's tongue. That hint of fruitiness — blackberry, she thought now — and the warmth that seemed to permeate her body. Warmth that seemed like it originated from her mouth; her lips and tongue were all a gently glowing oven with a fresh fruit pie inside. The sensation was much deeper as their tongues met for the second time.

Barbara's eyes spread wide.  _ What is Catwoman doing... God, what am I doing?! _ she wondered as her mind raced. At the table, sounds of stroking hands and eager approval rang out, and the cat was overlooked yet again. She glanced at Marchetti's men — Mister Z was curiously considering the cat at his feet from behind his boss' chair, but everyone else was utterly transfixed on the show heating up before them. Barbara imagined Marchetti storming across the tabletop with his knife again, demanding explanation and threatening violence. Batman emerging from the shadows. Dad kicking down the door. Failure.

And slowly, Barbara let her eyes fold closed as she kissed Catwoman back.

As her lips tasted and sucked at Barbara's, Catwoman moaned into her mouth, the vibrations sending chills down her body that twitched her fingers. Barbara had never flirted with the idea of being physical with another woman, but she was way past flirting now. With her eyes closed, her tongue exploring, and her body pressed tight against Catwoman's, Barbara tried her best to imagine all the things she would do if the kiss was Dick Grayson's. Her hands reached out for his chest, and found only Catwoman's generous, supple breasts. She moaned quietly, hoping to hear Dick's deep, warm voice in response, but only Catwoman's mouth moaned back. Her lips reached out after Dick's as he pulled away and teased her, but it was Catwoman's lips that moved back in for the attack. Dizziness spun her head as she tried to force her imagination to overpower the reality.

_ "Mmh, don't stop," _ Catwoman moaned as she paused to give Barbara's lower lip a single decadent suck.  _ "Let's give these boys... everything they want to see..." _

"Yeah, don't stop! I can-not-be- _ lieve _ this," Marchetti mumbled. "I got the two hottest girls in Gotham right here in my fucking club."

Their eyes fluttered open as they embraced each other, licking and nibbling at each others' mouths. Barbara found Marchetti kneeling in his chair, stroking himself like a chimpanzee. She glared at him under her eyelids, hoping her gaze would translate into something sexy instead of how much she utterly, desperately wanted to beat him into a coma. She stole a glance over his chair at Mister Z.

He held a small black cat scruffed by the neck, dangling in the air.

"Ey, boass," he mumbled in his deep Southshore accent. "Lookit dis cat." For the first time, Barbara could see the whites of his eyes, just barely, like a light through a cracked door. He looked as surprised as a half-asleep man could be.

"I know, Z, fuckin' look at her!" Marchetti said, staring at Catwoman, stroking himself faster.

Catwoman grabbed Barbara's face in her hands and kissed her passionately. Where before her mouth was gentle and calculated in the way she kissed, now she was hurried and fearful, unsure how much longer the show would hold up. Her tongue wrestled hungrily with Barbara's and they opened their mouths so everyone could see the fight.

"Nah, boass, I mean... lookit dis here cat," Mister Z mumbled, offering up the actual small black cat for him to see. It hung silently from his hand, resigned to its fate.

Marchetti ignored the huge man over his shoulder as he almost always did. "Yeah, Z! I'm lookin' at her! God damn!"

_ "We have to... mmn... have to hit them now... mmh," _ mumbled Barbara in between kisses and licks.  _ "He won't stop..." _

_ "Need to do... ooh... something about the... aah... the big guy... ohh... and the guns..." _ Catwoman whispered back.

They did, as a matter of fact, need to do something about the big guy. Now that he was "awake", Mister Z was a statue come to life; he wouldn't be easy for the two of them to take down. He seemed even larger in motion — the cat dangling from his hand looked like a single brick being hoisted by a construction crane. Barbara wasn't entirely sure a punch or a kick would do anything to the man. Between Mister Z's massive physical presence and with the potential firefight erupting the moment she or Catwoman made a move, it wasn't an easy strike. Before Barbara could calculate a plan of attack between licks and heartbeats and moans, she found an object in Catwoman's hand as her eyes fluttered open.

"Boass, look—"

"—Yeah,  _ boss _ ," Catwoman interrupted.  _ "Look at this Cat." _

Barbara didn't realize what had happened until the liquid hit her skin, so her shocked gasp was genuine: Catwoman had grabbed a decanter of olive oil from the dinner table and was slowly pouring a long, golden stream of it all over both of their bodies. The room glowed with hoots and howls of approval as everyone's eyes were glued to them by the stickiness of the oil.

"What are... oh! What... ooh—"

"—Here, Kitten," Catwoman purred.  _ "Lets get nice and slippery." _

The meaning behind Catwoman's tone wasn't lost on Barbara:  _ this  _ was how they'd  _ 'do something about the big guy'. _ Earlier, Barbara recognized Mister Z from his previous life as a boxer. She'd glanced at one of his case files before; he was just as big back then, but much leaner. Given his much rounder size now, and his affliction, there was no way he had the speed to match Batgirl or Catwoman in strikes — it was more likely he was a grappler. He'd have a hard time with something too slippery to grasp.

Barbara reddened in humiliation as Marchetti and his goons cheered. Catwoman rubbed the slowly spilling oil all over Barbara's body. She felt her breasts slide out of Catwoman's grip like wet jello, and suppressed a gasp as she tried to ignore the spike of arousal that followed. Rivulets dripped down over her body like too much wet paint, and Catwoman scooped them back up, sculpting the runoff over Barbara's body until it oozed down again.

_ "Don't let your hands get too sticky. Need you ready with the throwing knife." _ Catwoman whispered in her ear as she embraced Barbara and kneaded olive oil into her ass and thighs, drawing a gasp out of her as her hands squeezed gently. Barbara hated how Marchetti's slavering gaze winced as his playthings oiled themselves up for his pleasure. She hated herself for noticing how gentle Catwoman's touch was.

_ "I hate you so much," _ she whispered into Catwoman's ear.

_ "Don't lie," _ Catwoman whispered as her fingers wandered to that tender spot just at the base of Barbara's cowl, drawing goosebumps and a soft moan.  _ "You hate _ him.  _ But you're loving _ this. _ " _

_ "Shut up!" _ Barbara hissed, shaking off the chills of Catwoman's hands.  _ "I do no—" _

"—Now do me, Kitten!" Catwoman giggled playfully as she turned her back to Barbara and glanced coquettishly over her shoulder. She hesitated for a moment, to which Catwoman raised her eyebrows as if to say:  _ "The notebook." _

Barbara stifled a scowl and poured olive oil over Catwoman's back before gently pressing her body into the wet mess between them.

Rivers of slick, golden oil spilled down over Barbara's naked body as she glared daggers at Anthony Marchetti. She squeezed into Catwoman, and her tender breasts squished wet, sticky sounds against the thief's back. Catwoman's ass pressed delicately against Barbara's groin. A small loop of empty space breathed in between them where their curves cushioned their bodies apart, and Marchetti seemed to leer hungrily through that peephole of soft, oily skin. He licked his lips with a focused gaze as he stroked himself.

Barbara decided to use this: "Bet you wish you were the meat in this sandwich, Marchetti," she teased.

Even Catwoman laughed at the quip this time. "I bet he does, Kitten," she said as she turned around, squishing her breasts into Barbara's and pouring more oil between them.

The wet sounds of oil-slick skin made a chorus with the wet sounds of stroking and moaning. Slowly, Barbara slinked to a crouch, using her chest to catch some of the oil spilling over Catwoman's stomach. Then, just as slowly, she slid her way back up Catwoman's body like a stripper teasing her pole, breasts and muscles slipping and squeezing along the way. The room howled with approval at her creativity as their breasts squished and slipped.

Just behind Marchetti, a confused cat dangled from an equally confused Mister Z's grasp. He stared at it through his squinty brow as though it was the first cat he'd ever seen in his life. But, unable to find a way to interrupt his boss, he cradled the cat in his arm and continued covering his manhood and the notebook with the other hand. The cat accepted its fate and sat quietly in Mister Z's arm.

Barbara felt Catwoman sigh in relief as she spread oil all over their bodies with her own. As Barbara's breasts slid back up Catwoman's soft hips and inner thighs, she caught the unmistakable scent of feminine arousal. She was familiar with her own scent, and she wondered curiously how Catwoman's deep fragrance wasn't much different than her own. There was no hiding that Catwoman was enjoying it. The danger, the stakes, and the grotesque group masturbation session at the dinner table didn't disturb Catwoman enough to turn her off. In fact, it did the opposite.

_ "You really are... ooh... into this, aren't you?" _ Barbara whispered into Catwoman's neck as she finished rubbing their bodies together.

Catwoman kicked her leg up and put a foot on the table, rubbing oil up over her thigh and all the way down to her ankle.  _ "I'll enjoy it more once my cat is safe," _ she whispered,  _ "but of course. You are, too." _

"Ah, fuck!" the man standing in front of the computer suddenly grunted.

Barbara looked toward him in shock, expecting a gun. She reached to her cowl in anticipation, ready to throw the Batarang, but found the bearded man's eyes winced shut — the pretty blonde whore with him had sucked him to orgasm. She crouched low next to the edge of the table and instead stroked the mess into her waiting mouth. The runoff painted a sticky slickness over her chin, like vanilla ice cream. She giggled at him for it, and Barbara felt Catwoman purr in delight. A strange twist pinched Barbara’s gut, and she tried not to show it on her face. She'd only first seen this man a few minutes ago, and now she was watching him do something intimate and private. As his eyes met hers, Barbara remembered he was doing it to the sight of her, and her lip quivered involuntarily.

Marchetti ignored him as though it wasn't the first time something like that happened at the table. "Hey Cat, you missed a spot down there," he barked from his chair.

Barbara scowled, but Catwoman purred and smiled. "For once, I agree with the Big Guy," she said, pouring oil onto Barbara's thigh and spreading it dangerously close to her groin. In a flash, she grabbed Catwoman's wrist to push it away and prevent her from rubbing too close:  _ "Don't," _ she whispered.

Catwoman smiled deviously and pulled Barbara's hand to her own inner thigh, guiding it closer to her sex. Barbara couldn't hide the aggression in her movements.  _ "Play along," _ Catwoman whispered back.  _ "It's okay." _

"Ey, eh... boass," Mister Z tried to interject.

Catwoman grabbed Barbara by the back of her head and pulled her in close, her tongue gently playing over her lips. Reluctantly, but less than before, Barbara mirrored the urgency. She moaned and took up the bottle of oil from Catwoman, pouring more of it between them.

Marchetti, entranced by the oily women at the foot of his table, would hear none of it. "Z, you're just dreaming or something," he explained to the big man. "Talk later." The big man seemed to consider what he'd been told as he looked at the cat cradled in his arm with his squinty mole-eyes.

_ "Let's just... nnh... take them down..." _ Barbara moaned quietly.

_ "Don't forget... aah... about the guns..." _ Catwoman whispered into Barbara's mouth.

_ "How many? Ooh..." _ Barbara whispered as she kissed Catwoman.

" _ Mmm... hold on... play along..." _ Catwoman whispered as she kissed Barbara back.

With that, Catwoman bent low and nibbled beneath one of Barbara's breasts, her fingertips trailing over them as she did. Barbara moaned loud and low as Catwoman licked circles around a nipple, and Catwoman moaned in turn, drawing the same response from everyone in the room. The bearded man who had been sucked clean by his whore collapsed into his chair, spent of his energies. Barbara wondered how many more men she'd have to watch spray semen all over womens' mouths at the sight of her.

In fact, all of Marchetti's whores had joined in to please his men while they watched the new, exclusive Kitty Cat show. One of the men kissed one of the whores on his right, while the one on his left kneeled in her seat with her ass up in the air and tended his hardness so he didn't have to. The man's eyes glared at Barbara as his girl sucked and stroked him.

_ "Aah!" _ cooed Barbara as she was sucked out of her thoughts. The sudden, sensual warmth of Catwoman's mouth on her nipple made Barbara grasp the table as her knees shook and she found herself sitting on its edge. Barbara grabbed at Catwoman's head as she realized what was happening.

_ "Ohgod!" _ moaned Barbara as she saw where Catwoman's hot, wet tongue was heading next.  _ "Wait! Ooh!" _

But Catwoman's lips kissed their way slowly down Barbara's ribcage, like footsteps on a ladder climbing carefully downward. Catwoman planted an extra-soft kiss on her belly button as she slinked all the way down to her knees, her seductive green eyes glaring up at Barbara. Heat brimmed between her legs.

_ "Good," _ whispered Catwoman, the crowd cheering as her mouth kissed lower, drawing closer to the freshly-shaven, aching lips. She winked.  _ "Keep playing along." _

But Barbara was doing more than playing along. She gripped the dinner table and hoped for some double-meaning behind the words — one that didn't end with her having a screaming orgasm in Catwoman's mouth.


	5. The Climax

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catwoman shares an intimate moment; Barbara enters a very dangerous gambit.

As Barbara felt the heat between her legs flare up at the sensation of Catwoman's descending lips, she realized something she'd never fully understood about foreplay until then: it makes a vagina get very, very wet.

Being a virgin, Barbara had no real perspective on any of this. Sure, she knew why the body did what it did from what she'd read in her biology textbooks — the female anatomy slickened itself in anticipation, readied itself to be entered. Penetration apparently didn't provide most women much pleasure, but the body's sensation of readying itself to be penetrated was apparently very good. Barbara learned this firsthand when, as a senior in high school, she managed to look up from a book long enough to get noticed by a couple of boys her age, and then noticed them back.

Marcus Carter was the school's star wide receiver, and on the fast track to a full football scholarship at GCU. He was handsome as hell, and used to having his looks get girls to move fast with him. Barbara knew this, but Connie and her other friends couldn't stop berating her for throwing away her seemingly amazing luck:  _ "Go for it! He’s so hot!" _ they'd told her. She thought that, at best, Marcus was curious what it was like to be with one of the nerdy girls. But, for whatever reason, Barbara allowed herself to be a part of that fantasy for him.

Maybe it was just his good looks; it worked on all the other girls, after all. But making out with him in the school's maintenance stairwell felt amazing, right up to the moment where his hands started to wander lower. Once his fingers began rubbing her through her leggings, that same simmering sensation was there. His touch was experienced, and soon, everything started to feel even more amazing.  _ Too amazing. _ She remembered the thoughts she found climbing from the depths of her mind that she didn't know were there. She wanted him to go harder, faster. She wanted her leggings out of the way. She wanted more than just his fingertips.

Barbara remembered stopping him abruptly as she ran anxiously from that stairwell, all the way to the girl's locker room, and hid for hours. Her and Marcus never spoke again, but she never forgot how hard it was to catch her breath that day. She never forgot how much the pleasure inside her wanted to break free, or how later that night, she wanted to let her fingers wander where his once had. She never forgot how  _ wet _ he made her feel.

_ "Ohgod-ohgod-ohgod," _ Barbara whined as she glared down to the beautiful woman exploring her naked thighs. 'Arousal' didn't describe the level she was at now. After a long, heavy foreplay session with Catwoman that was ending with her mouth just inches from Barbara's sex, she was ten times wetter right now than she had been in that stairwell. Barbara's knees and fingers quivered gently, and she struggled to keep her bearings.

Catwoman's tongue, as ever, was warm and gentle. It confused Barbara that a woman so strong and vicious could also be as delicate as a feather. She kissed the arch of Barbara's pelvis, her inner thigh, the upper ridge of her mound where her red hair would start to grow soon: everywhere  _ except _ her buzzing slit. That only seemed to make everything more needy inside. Barbara dizzied as she considered the thought that having Catwoman's tongue on her lips for even a moment might cause her to crumple into an orgasm in front of everyone.

"Fuck yeah," Marchetti growled, smashing her out of that thought with his disgusting voice. "Time to see the Pussy eat some pussy."

Only Barbara saw Catwoman roll her eyes in disgust as she dipped even lower, licking the space inside her thighs. She felt Catwoman's hands tease the mounds of her ass from beneath and gently spread them apart, asking Barbara to open her stance a bit. As she did, Catwoman licked long trails up the insides of Barbara's thighs, gently pointing arrows of wet warmth at her vagina.

_ "Good job, Kitten," _ she whispered.  _ "Keep playing along." _

_ "Ohhhmygod..." _ Barbara muttered, the word  _ yes _ balancing on the tip of her tongue before she swallowed it like a chunk of lead. She fell back onto one elbow seated halfway atop the table as Catwoman's mouth did its gentle work, and she moaned through pursed lips and gritted teeth.

As her heart drummed inside her chest, Barbara caught herself as she realized what was truly happening: Catwoman was looking under the table with each long, warm lick. She ran her hands up over Barbara's breasts, kneading them gently to squeeze out another moan before her fingernails raked chills back down over Barbara's stomach. But not all of her fingernails — just two on one hand, and two on the other.

Four.

_ Okay... only four guns after all, _ Barbara thought as Catwoman tapped the fingers on her thighs one by one.  _ We can take them. _

The realization stumbled for a moment as Barbara felt chills seem to accelerate something inside her body: Catwoman's lips were still nibbling just inches from her slit, sliding the slickened folds. A chorus of moans were egging them on. Most of the whores' mouths and hands were full of short, sticky cocks. One was making out with her girlfriend, sharing a mouthful of cum as her knuckles jammed in and out of her own wet hole. Catwoman's fingers began kneading gently over Barbara's thighs, and something about it teased her clit in just such a way.

The realization slammed Barbara: it wasn't only Catwoman's scent of arousal she'd smelled before. It was her own.

Barbara felt the simmering wetness inside of her simmer a little too hot. Then, it boiled over.

_ "Wait!" _ Barbara squealed.  _ "Waitwaitwait! Oh!" _

In a panic, Barbara grabbed Catwoman by the head and drew their faces together, burying her tongue into her mouth as she bent down. She clenched every muscle in her body to stem the feeling of need that she absolutely didn't want to come out. From between her legs, Barbara's sex burned and clenched, barely holding back what she now recognized was the sudden edge of an orgasm. Her cup was full, and Catwoman was the drop that overflowed it.

_ "F-four... mmmh! O-okay... aah! Ohgod! Mmmm-waitwait... ohmygod... I'm... oh..." _ she mumbled into Catwoman's mouth as she focused and squeezed and clenched, holding back the sensation threatening to explode out of her. It barely did, and it barely didn't.

_ "Oh!" _ Catwoman whispered, sensing Barbara's body. She kissed back, gently.  _ "You're okay. It's okay. Breathe. I... I'm so... I didn't know you were... shit... did you really just..." _

There was a silent understanding between the two of them: Barbara, for all her strength and need for control, was a woman. She had a nervous system and erogenous zones just like any other. She'd been stimulated right up to the edge, and naturally, her body did the rest of the work for her. But she saw a gentleness in Catwoman's eyes for a moment at her fearful hesitation at what she'd done to Barbara — Catwoman hadn't expected Barbara to truly climax. It was all a game to tease Marchetti, and she’d never meant for it to go that far. They both breathed and locked eyes as they laid their foreheads together while Barbara's heat seethed out of her.

It was the single most intimate experience Barbara had ever shared with anyone. She hated that it was happening here with the woman who'd stolen her father's notebook. A blush bloomed over her face as she squinted back a tear while Catwoman held her close.

Across the table, Anthony Marchetti groaned.

_ "Come the fuck on,” _ he complained. “I want to see you eat up this Bat-chick's pussy! What the fuck was that fake orgasm shit?"

Catwoman lifted her head, and scowled at Marchetti with what Barbara saw was pure, raw hatred. "Nobody asked what you wanted,  _ Big Guy. _ The deal was you watch playtime with me and my Kitten.  _ No talking during the show. _ "

"Ey, boass," muttered the ogre holding the tiny cat, looking for a polite way to interject.

_ "Z, shut the fuck up right now!" _ Marchetti blasted, keeping his gaze locked on Catwoman as he kicked off his pants, stood from his chair again, and started walking across the tabletop. All eyes followed him, and so nobody saw the feline hostage in Z's arm. The orgy boiling around the table stopped cold as Marchetti's rage boiled.

He pointed a sticky finger down the long runway of his dinner table as he stalked closer. "You fuckin' listen to me.  _ The deal is I get to see a show. _ And guess what? I say  _ I get to direct _ that show if I fuckin' want."

"Wrong," Catwoman scowled. Barbara shivered.

"Know what else?" he added. "I can even  _ be in that show _ if I fuckin' want."

Barbara felt the tension seeping back into the room with the return of Marchetti's small, Napoleonic temper. Thankfully, it helped stifle the hot sensation between her thighs, and the warm rubbery clay of her legs began to harden again. She looked at Catwoman anxiously, who only groaned with even more annoyance.

"I'm sure you would  _ love _ for us to try out your  _ salami _ , Big Guy," she groaned. "Not happening. My Kitten and I are busy. Now, go park your ass in that chair."

A wave of relief washed over Barbara as a question was answered. At least she wasn’t going to take things any further in front of everyone — at least they were allied in their disgust of Anthony Marchetti. They shared a quiet glance of understanding again.

"Fuck you. You're not the one in charge here," retorted Marchetti, growing unusually calm as he stood at the center of the table, staring them down. The sudden change in demeanor sent another chill down Barbara's spine, and she found herself hugging Catwoman a bit closer. "This is my club. It's my notebook.  _ I have the thing you want _ , so I make the deal. So here's the  _ new _ deal,  _ Kitty _ :

"This just became the Anthony Marchetti show."

Marchetti's crew cheered as he lorded over them from atop the table, his arms spread triumphantly. To them, he was about to turn two of Gotham's most mysterious creatures of the night into his ruined, slutty playthings.

In response, Catwoman laughed.

It wasn't at all what Barbara expected, and it definitely didn't match the expression of horror on her own face — but then, Barbara realized part of Catwoman's entire motif was that she never did what anyone expected. Laughing at an armed mobster in his own den of thieves as he loomed menacingly and demanded sexual favors in exchange for a stolen notebook? Nobody could have called that. And with that understanding, Barbara also realized how far out of control the entire situation was. She stood very still, and the laughter among Marchetti's crew died down as they glanced nervously at each other over Catwoman's cackling.

_ "Aww, poor Tony," _ cooed Catwoman as she chuckled at the small, threatening man. She was either walking the tightrope expertly, oblivious to the dangerous chasm she was crossing, or both. "Did my Kitten and I tease you too mu—?"

_ "—Shut!" _ Marchetti barked, pausing for a moment:  _ "Up. _ Now, both of you, crawl your tight little asses up here and suck this cock."

Catwoman chuckled again, the mockery crackling in her velvety tone. Her act was as distracting as ever, but Barbara knew the entire thing was out of hand now. Catwoman couldn't seduce her way out of over-seducing someone, and her laughter in the face of Marchetti's annoyed, stony gaze came off more nervous than mocking.

"Denny, how much time till the wire fails?" Marchetti asked the bearded man with the computer.

He turned the suitcase laptop toward himself and struggled to look at the screen over the large fake breasts of the pretty girl sitting in his lap. "Uh... just over three minutes, sir."

Marchetti leered at Catwoman as he pulled his shirt tails aside, revealing his hard, sticky member more openly. "You and your sidekick have three minutes or the deal's off," he stated. "Crawl over here and start sucking."

From behind them all, the cat in Mister Z's arm swished its tail. Catwoman giggled. "But  _ Tony _ ," she whined. "I was getting  _ so wet  _ from watching you stroke yourself and pout."

Marchetti ignored the obvious taunt. Catwoman's secret power over him seemed to have its limitations. "Clock's ticking," he growled.

"Big Guy, we talked about this!" Catwoman purred, waving away his threats like a gnat. "As much as I'd  _ love _ to have some  _ warm milk  _ before bed, you know I can't. This is a business deal, remember?"

Marchetti ignored her as she talked, instead pointing and snapping at the man he'd called Denny, who refocused on the laptop. "Uh... two minutes forty-four seconds, sir," Denny announced on cue.

The carefully-crafted scene was slowly crumbling onstage, and the room held its breath as the tension rose. The whores were no longer playing with his men, and the men weren't playing with themselves. Everyone was waiting to see the outcome of the power play. It had suddenly grown quiet enough to hear a pin drop.  _ Or a cat meow _ , Barbara thought as she glanced at Mister Z and his hostage.

Catwoman and Batgirl were nestled together at the foot of the table, slathered in oil and aroused from a foreplay session turned into a VIP show for a man they both despised. Marchetti himself was demanding a sweeter deal, and making Batgirl and Catwoman into the sugar. Just behind him, his massive bodyguard was quietly holding the notebook in one hand, and a small feline hostage in the other. A bank transaction to Catwoman's secret account was literally hanging on the wire. Robin would be on the roof by now, probably checking the skylights as Barbara had. And Batman was coming.

But with chaos, clarity. It felt to Barbara like sailing through a fog and seeing the shoreline clearly for the first time. Through the mists of arousal and fear and shame, she sighted a simple fact on the distant shores:

Whatever happened next, there was no chance Barbara was leaving with the notebook.

If Catwoman's plan played out, the notebook would belong to her, and she'd escape again. And this time, she'd have a bank account full of cash and Barbara's utter humiliation as a bonus. If the plan fell through, they'd probably both be in grave danger very soon, or worse. Barbara was playing along with Catwoman's game for a chance to win, but that chance pivoted around Catwoman winning first.  _ 'The Stage' _ and Barbara’s participation in the act were all an illusion. The heated foreplay wrapped in coercion and shame — and, even as Barbara hated to admit, pleasure — only had one outcome. It was all to distract her from the fact that she'd been wagering herself on someone else's gamble.  _ 'Uses Seduction to Disarm Opponents'. _

Barbara sighed, and her eyes blinked as the truth revealed itself to her. She lost the game long before she'd even started playing. But as the tension grew hotter and the stakes grew higher, the solution simply appeared in her mind, shining as brightly as an old memory.

"How do you want it, Marchetti?" Barbara asked suddenly.

Catwoman's eyes widened a bit as she turned her gaze to Barbara and glared. It was the third time now that Barbara had seen an honest reaction out of the woman: first, regret at Barbara’s accidental orgasm; then, rage at Marchetti; now, that same rage at her. Even Barbara wasn't sure if she'd actually said the words aloud, and the cold chill over her thighs signaled her body's rejection of the sound of her own voice:  _ No, don't do that, Barbara _ . Still, the show had to go on. Only now, Barbara wasn't going to read the lines that Catwoman had written for her in the script.

She gazed deeply into Marchetti's eyes as she spoke: "Like this?"

Barbara lifted Catwoman's hand to her lips and quietly sucked a finger into her mouth before letting it slide free, wet and glistening in the soft, warm light of the dining room. She licked all around Catwoman's finger as she stared unblinkingly into Marchetti's eyes. A short while passed as she traced circles around the phallic totem, teasing it from all angles as she pretended to relish in the salty, olive oil flavor. Finally, she pulled away, leaving a small thread of spit that dribbled onto her chin.

Atop the table, Marchetti's cock flexed, a daub of fluid leaking from the tip. Barbara flexed her stomach to quench the disgust, and smiled. Marchetti's body language relaxed, speaking the truth behind his words.

"I don't care how you do it," he grumbled. "Just get the fuck over here and do it."

"Ooh, but see,  _ I think you do care _ , Marchetti," Barbara said before releasing Catwoman's hand and brushing a gentle caress over her face, relishing the confusion in her eyes. "You can't rush quality."

"I think I can," Marchetti countered.

_ "I think you can't," _ Barbara countered without skipping a beat. She pulled away from Catwoman and glared at him as she placed her hands on the table's edge, presenting her body to him. Her breasts wobbled as she leaned over, and she watched his eyes dip momentarily. "And while I bet you'll probably pop in five seconds flat the moment you're in my mouth, I think you'd rather be taken care of  _ the right way _ ."

"Oh, is that so, sidekick?" Marchetti chuckled. "And you're just the girl to do it, huh?" He snapped over his shoulder at Denny again.

"Two minutes, sir," Denny said.

Barbara lifted a leg to the table's edge and climbed atop it. Her hands and knees left oil marks on the polished wood with every motion as she crawled towards Marchetti, just like he wanted. The response in his body was clear and almost instantaneous.

"Well, Marchetti," Barbara said as she slinked toward him, her back arched to show off the slow, sultry sway of her ass, "first of all — and this is important —  _ I'm not. Her. Sidekick. _ " Barbara glared as she chided him. Marchetti's face wrinkled in confusion, but he looked down his nose at her, standing his ground.

"Second of all: I most certainly am the girl to do it," Barbara said as she drew closer. She made sure to keep herself lower than him as she arrived; he obviously liked being the feeling of being bigger than everyone else. She chewed her lips as she settled at his feet, and watched his hardness flex nervously even if he didn't.

"And how's that?" he asked.

"I've got nothing to lose and everything to gain," explained Barbara. She could have swore she heard Catwoman shifting uncomfortably behind her, and the joy that her new plan was working made her fake smile glow with real mischief.

Barbara flexed her stomach to avoid recoiling at the smell of alcohol and sweat radiating from the man's sticky cock. "If Catwoman seals the deal? I don't get anything. Certainly not any of the money that's coming through that wire transaction in..."

She snapped at Denny, who reacted just as quickly to the sound of Barbara's fingers: "A... minute thirty-six seconds?"

_ "...A minute and thirty-six seconds," _ echoed Barbara, kneeling at Marchetti's feet and gently running her fingertips up his taut thighs. "Does that sound like a good way to treat your sidekick?  _ I get nothing." _

She glared at his erection and studied it carefully, submissively. Looking at it from different angles like an art gallery patron appreciating a master's sculpture. She made sure he could feel her breath over his skin, and she watched as his fingertips trembled a bit.

"That so?" was all he could manage.

"Mm-mmm," Barbara pouted, shaking her head like a sad girl who couldn't have any dessert after dinner. "Nothing."

"So now you pretend you're a slut, huh?" Marchetti quipped, calling her bluff. "Like you didn't stumble in here all scared like a little girl? Making threats at me?"

"Oh, no, I know what I did," Barbara said honestly. She was ready for this, and had only shown part of her hand intentionally. "But that was before I realized I had nothing to gain. So let me make it up to you. Because I also know what I can do next."

"And what's that, little Bat-girl?" Marchetti wondered aloud, punctuating the words of her name wrong.

"I can suck every last drop out of you..." Barbara said, her face beaming with desire as she licked her lips before finishing her sentence:

"...If you give  _ me  _ the notebook instead."

Suddenly, Marchetti understood what was happening. His face brightened, and he started rumbling with a laughter all his own. This was exactly what Barbara wanted, and so was the thinly-veiled whine of protest from over her shoulder.

"Now, Big Guy, let's not do anything unbecoming a businessman here," Catwoman said, trying and failing to assert her voice over the laughter that the whole room was echoing now. "You and I had a deal, remember?"

That deal didn't matter now, and Barbara had no choice but to use it to pick at the one part of Catwoman's plan that she hadn't sealed tightly enough: Anthony Marchetti wasn't a businessman. He was a thief playing as a businessman.  _ "Anthony Marchetti stole the notebook from me," _ Catwoman's voice whispered in Barbara's memory. If he was willing to steal from her or alter an agreement between them once, he'd do it as often as it suited him. All he just needed the right reason to do so, the right whim to strike his fancy. Barbara was more than happy to provide it.

"Now we're talking!" announced Marchetti. "Looks like we have ourselves a little competition here!" He snapped his fingers at Denny.

"Just one minute left, sir," he replied obediently.

Catwoman rolled her eyes. "Oh please, Tony. My Kitten might be a fun little toy to play with if it were about that. But it's not about that. It's about our deal."

"Looks like I got a better deal!" announced Marchetti to cheers that drowned out Catwoman's voice.

Barbara smiled at Marchetti. Secretly, she was smiling inward, allowing herself a moment of pride. Appealing to Marchetti's sense of honor was the wrong move — he didn't have any. If he did, it was clouded by arousal, by the red haired girl pooled at his feet like a loving pet, caressing his thighs and glowing happily. He didn't want to make sound business deals or honor his word. He wanted to watch two women fight over the right to suck his cock for something they wanted from him; Marchetti wanted power. So, with the best stripper-eyes and promising lips Barbara could muster, she gave it to him.

"What's it going to be, Marchetti?" Barbara asked. She gazed up at him coyly from beneath his shaft, glancing around the side of it to meet his gaze like a girl peeking at someone from around a corner. "Can I put this in my mouth now?"

Catwoman scoffed. "You really think she wants you, Tony? She's  _ buttering you up _ , Big Guy."

Marchetti considered the words, glaring down at Barbara. "What do you say to that,  _ 'Kitten' _ ? Eh? Denny, what's the clock?"

"Thirty-two seconds, sir."

Against every impulse in her body, Barbara stretched out her tongue and teased away any doubt Catwoman's words may have given Marchetti. She opened her mouth wide and breathed heat onto the warm, prickly skin of his scrotum as her tongue feigned a long, gentle lick, then traced a soft, gentle fingertip across his balls. The whole shaft flexed at her touch, the droplet of fluid blooming at the tip.

"I don't have to like you, Anthony Marchetti," she said with a steely, sultry gaze. "I just have to suck your cock."

"Fifteen seconds, sir."

Marchetti nodded his approval of the idea, pleased that his little impromptu competition seemed to have a frontrunner. "Denny, pause the wire," he ordered.

Catwoman, to her merit, hadn't budged from her spot at the foot of the table, and to her it must have felt like her patience paid off. She barely concealed a sigh of relief as he stopped her money from scattering into the wind. Catwoman didn't intend to go into this meeting a sex toy to be used for Marchetti's pleasure and money — at least not in a hands-on sort of way. But she also hadn't wagered on Batgirl doing exactly that in her stead, forcing both their hands.

Her protests and warnings came off as whiny and defensive: "Tony, come on, you aren't actually buying any of this, are you? You can't seriously—"

"Finish the wire if I say, Denny. Not before," Marchetti ordered. The man muttered a short, obedient reply.

Barbara talked over Catwoman, ignoring her while she complained in a barely-restrained panic: "Good choice, Marchetti. Now, here's a deal for you. I'm going to stroke every drop right out of—"

"—just going to betray you as soon as she finishes the job, Tony, you know that don't y—"

"—then you're going to put that notebook in my hand. Then, maybe I'll suck you a little extra fo—"

"—thought you were smarter than this, Tony! How could I have thought I was working with a real—"

Barbara teased, and Catwoman raged. But only one of them was kneeling at Marchetti's feet, right where he wanted them. His eyes never left Barbara as she smiled a hungry smile and made promises to him while his cock waited only inches away from her face, aching for a wet, warm mouth to thrust into. She let her voice run low, using the space between them to drown out Catwoman's whining.

"How much of a blowjob can Catwoman give you in fifteen seconds?" Barbara asked with the best pouty, sexy lips she could pucker for him. "Me? I'll suck you off for an hour if it means I get to gloat in front of her while I walk out of here with Catwoman's prize."

"The hell you will," tested Marchetti.

Barbara pooled a load of drool in her mouth and opened it wide, stringing the spit from the roof of her mouth as she stretched out her tongue and showed Marchetti where he could stick his cock. She turned her mouth toward it, dribbling some of the hot saliva onto the shaft, then suddenly pulled away leaving her breath teasing against his aching tip. Marchetti mumbled to himself, seemingly entranced by the debased slut kneeling at his feet.

"The hell I will," said Barbara, licking her lips.

"What's she telling you, Tony?" Catwoman asked from far away. "It's all bullshit."

Marchetti winced away a shudder as Barbara teased another suck at Marchetti's cock, then pulled away at the last moment. "I don't know, Pussycat," he replied. "She's doin' more than you're doin' right now, I'll tell you that." Everyone chuckled; Barbara feigned a giggle as well.

The room was relaxed again as the entertainment seemed to be picking up again: Barbara teased at Marchetti's feet, the whores played with his men again as they admired her performance, and the sounds of moaning and pleasure were starting to simmer.  _ ‘The Stage’ _ was set; Barbara was running the show now. Only Catwoman stood stiffly at the foot of the table, unwilling to participate.  _ Come on, Catwoman, _ Barbara thought.  _ Give up. _

"Please, Big Guy," Barbara begged. "I bet you want to watch her suffer after all that teasing."

"Oh, how rude, Kitten. Honestly, sidekicks these days," Catwoman chided. Barbara noticed it was the first time she'd addressed her directly.  _ Come on, damn you, _ she thought to herself as she teased Marchetti.

"Maybe you really don't want to wait anymore," Barbara thought aloud as she eased in even closer. She traced a single fingertip over the length of his shaft, stringing along some of the spit she'd laid there.

"You don't have the guts, Kitten," groaned Catwoman.

At the center of the table, with all eyes in the room fixed on her, Barbara pressed on. "Why don't you cum in my mouth right now while Catwoman watches? Wouldn't that be hot?" she asked. "After that, you can do something even hotter with me," she said.

"And what's that Bat-chick?"

"You can give me the notebook while Catwoman watches," Barbara said, winking. Everyone chuckled and cheered for Batgirl. Nobody paid Catwoman any mind.

She slid beneath Marchetti's cock again and stretched her tongue out long and low, offering it as a warm, wet target, and he winced in anticipation as she teased.  _ Come on, Catwoman. _

Then, as if answering Barbara's thoughts: "Fine, Kitten. You win."

Barbara paused and glanced coyly over her shoulder. "Oh?"

The thief cocked her hip and posed in a now-familiar way as she cracked a wry smile. "If that's the way you want it, be my guest!" she spat, calling Barbara's bluff. "Enjoy that mouthful of spoiled milk."

Barbara was already much too deep into this than she'd ever imagined, but she knew she had to sweeten the deal beyond any doubt either of them possibly had. Strangely, it felt wrong to betray Catwoman, especially after the intimate moment from before. But beneath that, Barbara knew all of it was part of Catwoman's talent for manipulation. The idea that this scene was the two of them teaming up to take down Marchetti was an illusion covering the fact that Batgirl was the one being thrown to the wolves. Still, she felt a knot of guilt as she twisted the knife one last time:

"I will, Catwoman!" Barbara replied, smiling. "Enjoy walking out of here with  _ nothing _ ."

The look in Catwoman's eyes made Barbara understand truly, if just for a moment, what it must be like to be her. Catwoman was so used to using her body and her sexuality to manipulate others. It never failed; it was her power. As natural to her as walking or breathing. But as the smile melted down over Catwoman's shocked face, the cocky sureness turning to fear and uncertainty, Barbara felt an undeniable rush of pure, unfiltered adrenaline.

She turned back to Marchetti and gazed up at him, channeling an image of Dick in her mind to warm the smile on her face to something real. She summoned every ounce of strength she had to ignore the impulses in her body screaming at her to stop, and wrapped a hand around the base of his shaft. Her palm began a slow, careful stroke of Marchetti's sticky erection. The bead of clear-white arousal balancing at the tip stretched low and splattered quietly on the tabletop as she pumped out whatever was pooling up inside him. The spit squished in her hand like lotion.

Barbara moaned and looked up at him with kitten eyes. "Come on, Marchetti," she urged. "Say it."

Marchetti's eyes were glassy and distant, and his hips swayed with Barbara's hand. "Say what?"

"Say you'll give me the notebook," Barbara replied.

She quickened her stroke a bit and licked her lips as she imagined kissing Dick on the rooftops. Marchetti groaned and mustered whatever strength he could. "Give me a little preview, yeah?"

At the table, the whores stroked and teased their men as they watched Barbara. She saw out of the corner of her eye that one of the women gave an impressed gesture towards her man, who agreed. Catwoman's silence loomed behind her like a monster in a dark closet.  _ Come on, dammit, _ she thought.

"Nuh-uh," Barbara pouted, shaking her head. She stroked harder and feigned a lick at the new sticky mess oozing from the head of his cock, then pulled away. "Say it."

Marchetti's thighs shivered. "Just give it a little kiss, yeah Bat-chick?"

"That's not my name," Barbara corrected, raising her eyebrows.

"Suck my cock, Batgirl," Marchetti groaned.

"Say the words, Anthony Marchetti."

Marchetti let out a breath as Barbara slowed her stroke to a painfully slow, air-tight grip and squeezed his wet, sticky cock down to the base. She faked at him with her tongue again, and his hips bucked forward, trying to push himself into her mouth. Barbara resisted with a smile, using only a little of her strength to hold the small man at bay.

"Say. It." Barbara ordered. It was just as much a command for Catwoman as for him.

Marchetti groaned, unable to take anymore teasing. "Alright. Catwoman's out. It's yours, baby," he said. "Now, suck."

_ "Wait!" _ shouted Catwoman. And, for the first time that night, Barbara licked her lips with genuine hunger.

"Don't listen to her, Marchetti," Barbara whined, her eyes sad as though disappointed she wasn't sucking him already. "We have a deal."

"Wait, Big Guy!" Catwoman begged. "Don't do this! It's... it's mine!"

"Hold on," Marchetti ordered, yanking Barbara's head back by the hair. His touch disgusted the core of her being, and Barbara clenched her teeth tightly enough to wince as the nerves inside them screamed in protest.

But still, there was the word she was waiting for:  _ 'Wait.' _ She savored the sweetness of the sound of Catwoman showing her belly for Marchetti. It had taken far longer than she wanted and she'd had to do something she'd have to meditate for weeks to wash the memory out of her mind, but she'd done it. She'd beaten her at her own game.

"Please? It's still mine right? Please?" Barbara asked, opening her mouth like she'd seen the whores do before.

"I..." the words stalled in Catwoman's mouth, but only for a moment. "...I'll do it."

"No, Marchetti," Barbara squeaked up from his feet, feigning a frown as she winced through the pull of her hair. "You said it's all mine. And I want it all."

Marchetti's mind seemed to whirl at the fantasy of power literally playing out at his feet — two sexy, naked women fighting over the chance to give themselves to him. What happened next wasn't a surprise at all, but she was relieved that it came:

"Now, let's not be hasty here," Marchetti said. "I want to know what the Kitty Cat has to offer."

Catwoman slid into character almost invisibly as the power shifted in her favor again. She climbed up onto the tabletop, heavy breasts swaying temptingly for Marchetti's hungry eyes as she did. The hesitation and fear only showed up in her own eyes as anger, and it beamed at Barbara like a laser.  _ Right back at you, _ Barbara whispered with her own narrowing gaze.

"What I have to offer, Big Guy, is a better, more experienced technique than my  _ treasonous sidekick _ here," Catwoman countered, spitting the word  _ 'sidekick' _ at Barbara as she crawled across the table, submitting to Marchetti's wishes. She oozed sexuality and dirty promises as she crawled her most sensual feline crawl. "How's that sound?"

Marchetti gathered himself as Catwoman approached. "Not bad at all," he muttered as he stared at her tits and bit his lip.

"No!" Barbara shouted as she released his shaft from her grasp and slapped her knee in protest, thankful to have an excuse to take her hand off the disgusting, sticky penis. She made a mental note to scald her hands with hot water and medical-grade cleanser later. "We had a deal! I get the notebook!"

"He doesn't want a  _ girl _ , Kitten," Catwoman purred as she gazed into Marchetti's eyes. "He wants a  _ woman _ . Particularly, a woman who can put his entire cock in her throat and make him cum hard enough to forget all about you."

Barbara whined theatrically as Catwoman approached, just as Barbara had planned. "I want it Marchetti! You have to let me! I... I can suck you off better than she can!" She hoped that her own disguise wasn't failing as she feigned the words in her most pathetic, desperate voice. "Please! We had a deal! I heard you say it!"

"That was then, Bat-chick," Marchetti replied as he threw her away by the hair and stared at Catwoman, who slinked up his leg like she was a pet begging for a treat. "I think I'll give the Kitty Cat here a chance to prove her case. You'll get your shot if she doesn't perform."

Barbara scoffed, putting on her best expression of ghastly disgust at the uncouth rascal who had previously agreed to shove his gift to the world into her mouth. Catwoman sidled up to Marchetti and shoved Barbara even further away from Marchetti's feet with her shoulder. Barbara slinked back in defeat as Catwoman took her rightful place beneath him.

"Try not to shoot all that warm milk down my throat  _ too fast _ , Big Guy," Catwoman purred as she smiled up at Marchetti, squeezing her tits. "I might go around telling people you're a two-pump chump. Oh, and Kitten?" she paused, shooting a disgusted glance at Barbara. "You might want to watch and take notes. If only you had some kind of  _ notebook _ to do it with."

And then, having heard its mother say the magic word aloud, the cat in Mister Z's arm meowed proudly in response.

Everyone turned to look.

The obediently silent Mister Z offered the animal up for his boss' appraisal, seemingly happy for the opportunity to finally explain what he couldn't before. "Lookit dis cat, boass," he said in his deep, calm voice. The small dining room was utterly silent for either the space of a heartbeat or an hour.

Marchetti was the first to look back to Catwoman, his face twisted with confusion. "The fuck is that?" he asked. "You... brought a cat? How'd you get it in here?"

Catwoman struggled to hide her shock at the discovery of her little spy, and her performance slipped a bit. "I... am the Alley Cat, after all," she reasoned, "the things just follow me around. Is that going to be a problem?" Catwoman licked her lips and eyed Marchetti's erection, attempting to draw attention back to the literal matter at hand.

But Marchetti, for all his faults, wasn't stupid. His eyes darted about, and Barbara could almost hear his mind asking questions:  _ Why would a cat follow Catwoman into my club? Why into this room? Why did it only meow just now? Why is Z holding it? What was he trying to tell me earlier? _

"The fuck are you up to?" Marchetti grumbled, sensing the lie but not being able to piece it together just yet. He was so busy trying to construct something meaningful out of the cat, the notebook, and the beautiful, naked woman curled up at his feet that he failed to notice an important detail.

Barbara was standing quietly at the foot of the table holding a Batarang.

This night had been one that Barbara wouldn't soon forget, mostly from all the mistakes she'd made that brought her down this path: the kick from atop the Clarefield building that should have left her dead on the pavement; the chase through Gotham, and the fight atop the Hedonist Society building; Marchetti's dining room, the shame, and the grime. But most of all, Barbara was tired of people gawking over her naked body. She was tired of  _ nakedness _ as an entire concept. It felt good that things were about to end, one way or another, on her terms. And while Catwoman had set  _ 'The Stage'  _ for her, Barbara stole the show. Now, she'd bring the house down.

"Hey Catwoman?" Barbara said, brandishing the small, polished blade. "I'm ready with that throwing knife now."

The look of shock and rage on Catwoman's face froze for a long breath. Barbara gave her a moment just long enough to realize what had happened — she was in the center of the table with Marchetti, and Barbara wasn't.

Barbara wound up, and threw. The knife whispered through the air, slicing the chandelier's suspension chain neatly.

She caught a glimpse of Catwoman's fearful understanding as the flash of the electrical line plunged the room into darkness, burning the image into her mind forever like a photograph. The chandelier flashed, and fell quietly above Catwoman and Marchetti.

It was quiet and dark for a moment. Then, the crash.

Then, the screams.


	6. The Encore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Batgirl and Catwoman each make their final plays; the notebook is finally claimed.

The weight of the large iron chandelier was enough to split the table in two. It caved through the middle, and Barbara vaulted into the air as her half of the wooden surface became a catapult. Sailing high over the dinner party, she keyed the night vision optics in her cowl, lighting up the lenses on her eyes, and landed in a tight crouch on the other side of the table.

It was time to introduce everyone to the real Batgirl.

As she surveyed the shapes and colors moving against the panel of pitch blackness, she saw that Catwoman had, of course, dodged uncannily out of the way of the falling object. Amidst the panic and shouting, Batgirl found her as a burst of yellow in a crouched shape not unlike her own, hiding off behind one of the chairs that hadn't fallen over as the gangsters dove away in fear. The resolution of the optics was high enough that Batgirl could see the hate beaming from Catwoman's eyes.

She'd have to wait her turn: all around them, chaos roiled. Screams and shouts were haunted by the long, low church bell ringing of the massive chunk of iron that had brought a sudden nightfall over the room. The gangster at the table's head opposite the towering Mister Z was the first to notice two white, devil eyes staring at him in the dark. But the fallen chandelier was as effective as a flashbang, and he was stunned from the sudden deprivation of senses followed by the sudden sensory overload. More importantly, all the men had been standing at Batgirl's request from earlier — now, none of them could get to their guns easily under the crushed table. So, all this stunned, confused man could do was yelp in terror as Batgirl brought a vicious snap kick to his chin. He dropped, and laid still.

One.

The man called Denny, to his merit, had jumped clear of the table, and had taken both his crushed laptop and his frightened whore with him. They were cowering far off to the side of the action, and he held her close with one arm as he shivered in fear. Batgirl felt pity for a moment, but rage and shame drowned it out — he'd looked at her while he climaxed into that girl's mouth. She'd done so willingly, but it was in the same way that Batgirl had put on a naked sex show with Catwoman. _"Willingly."_ They both squealed in terror as Batgirl's eyes narrowed, and floated closer to them in the dark. Denny held up the woman as a shield as if to say: _Take her, not me._ Batgirl grabbed her by the wrist, moved her aside, and put a right cross onto Denny's jaw. His head wobbled like the speed bag back in the cave's workout room. She turned to the woman, and barked a command: _“Hide.”_ The poor, terrified thing scrambled to the corner and curled into a ball.

Two.

Sensing something behind her, Batgirl stepped aside and bent low to make herself into a springboard. Squat muscles flexed as a naked gangster tumbled clumsily over her back, and she exploded upward, throwing him into the wall on top of the unconscious Denny. They were starting to track her now: the eyes were beacons in the dark. She wanted it that way — let them come. A second man behind the first lunged out to grab her as well, and she casually kneed him in the groin, then wrapped her hands around his head to pull another knee up into his nose. Each alternating knee strike landed in the space of a blink. The man doubled over in agony, and she finished him off with a uppercut forceful enough to stand him up. He didn't, though. Behind her, the man who she'd thrown into the wall tried for another blind charge, and won himself a perfectly-placed roundhouse kick. Loose teeth rattled on the wood floor like marbles.

Three. Four.

Another man was halfway under the table now, hiding and searching frantically for a gun, knowing that was probably his only chance. The stories of Bat-encounters circled through prisons and other criminal circles, and everybody liked to talk about what they'd do if they were ever in the room with the Bat. They all knew the lights went out, and then the fighting started. They all talked big. The ones that got their chance often hid under the tables. Batgirl dragged him out by an ankle, and he managed to kick her in the stomach with his free foot as he screamed and tried to bring the pistol in his shivering hand to bear. The trigger squeezed nervously, and then only after Batgirl had pinned his hand to the floor, pointing the barrel harmlessly up to the ceiling. Then, she quietly broke his wrist, snatched the gun, and rang his head against the floor. Her hands stripped the pistol in the space of a second — magazine, slide, chambered round — throwing them all in different directions. A security alarm triggered somewhere, and deep red emergency lights suddenly drowned the room in crimson.

Five.

Barbara’s heart screamed in her chest. Someone even screamed out loud in rage, and she realized only after the fact that it was her. Part of her knew it wasn't a healthy thought, but it felt _so good_ to get her knuckles bloody. The adrenaline in her veins was like medicine. It was only then that Barbara noticed the tears muddying her optics, and switched them off. There was so much inside her after everything this night held: embarrassment, frustration, shame. She wanted to let all of it out, but it was quashed by the focused, boiling rage that was Batgirl. Barbara would just have to sit in the corner of her mind and cry quietly for a minute instead.

 _Pop_. Another single gunshot, like a camera flash. Batgirl instinctively took cover behind a chair.

On the other side of the table, Catwoman had been busy. Four other men were down, motionless on the floor. A fifth had pulled a gun from under the table and fired, and Catwoman had just finished sidestepping the line of fire and putting a knife-edge strike into the shooter's throat. He choked, and Catwoman took the gun from his hand like a toy from a bratty child. She swept the man's legs out from under him, and planted a foot on his windpipe.

Then, Catwoman raised the gun at the silent, towering Mister Z.

This was the true checkmate then. Everything before had been a ploy for Batgirl to get Catwoman either injured from the chandelier fall or at least busy while she neutralized targets and advanced on Mister Z herself. He was the goal, after all; he was the endgame to all of this. With Catwoman armed, Batgirl was out. Game over.

The ogre had either slept through everything that had happened, or simply hadn't moved. In any case, little about him had changed; he held a very patient cat in one hand, and his manhood in the other. Only now, he was glaring at Catwoman. It was unsettling, like looking at a statue, looking away, and then finding it in a slightly different pose when you looked back.

Catwoman growled: "Drop. My. Cat."

Mister Z stood still and silent.

Catwoman pointed the gun at the man under her, and kneecapped him. A spray of red erupted from the man's leg, and it almost seemed colorless against the glowing emergency lights. He gargled in pain through the heel on his throat.

"No!" Batgirl screamed. "Damn it Catwoman, don't!"

Catwoman ignored her, and leveled the weapon at the big man again. _"Do it!"_ she screamed, unhinged rage cracking her voice. Her eyes were wild and wide, and the pistol was still and silent in her hand.

Like an ancient archaeological puzzle had been solved, Mister Z's hand slowly opened while the rest of his statue-like form stood utterly still. Catwoman called her pet, and it jumped down to the floor and went to its mother. There, it purred at the foot that she wasn't torturing someone with.

"Go home, baby," Catwoman said sternly to her spy. "We'll talk later."

Batgirl had never seen an animal so well trained, even one that had technically failed at the mission it was trained for. Quietly, the animal bounded off to the side of the room, then scurried up the wall to an air vent she hadn't noticed before. Catwoman strode over the man she'd shot in the leg, crushing his windpipe as she advanced on Mister Z. The man choked and sputtered as he grasped pathetically at his knee for a moment before blacking out.

"Now then, Sleepyhead," Catwoman said as she pointed the gun at him and closed the gap. "What do you think I’m going to ask for ne—"

It happened in a flash: Mister Z grabbed Catwoman's hand. And not just her hand, but the gun, and half of her forearm as well. His palm was at least as big as a bear's paw. Catwoman screamed, and Mister Z threw her to the floor like a ragdoll.

"Catwoman, no!" Batgirl yelped.

She hit the ground like a sandbag, and Batgirl heard bones crunch. The gun spun away across the floor, and in another flash, the big man picked up Catwoman by the throat and held her aloft. Stunned from being bashed against the floor like a half-dead fish, she simply hung from his closed fist, limply swatting at his arm. Most of her face and all of her neck was crushed tightly in his grasp. Her eyes glassed, and slowly drifted shut. It was a horrid, brutal way to go.

Batgirl roared, and dove over the table.

She wasn't sure what would happen next, but she acted anyway, mostly on the pure adrenaline of seeing someone being strangled to death. Even if it was Catwoman, she didn't deserve that. Batgirl planted her feet on the edge of the table, coiled, and sprung, diving into a sure elbow strike to the ogre's temple.

The notebook fell to the floor, and Mister Z stepped on it with a massive foot.

Batgirl wasn't sure if she was just imagining Mister Z was fast because he barely moved at all, or if he actually had metahuman speed. The backhand came so hard and fast that it didn't matter. Batgirl spun backwards like a tennis ball serve returned hard, and bashed against the table she'd just jumped from. A squeak blew out of her lungs as she crumpled. The edges of her vision darkened, a black ghost hugging her from all sides.

She roared at it until it slinked away, and clambered to her feet. She didn't have time to black out now.

Then, suddenly, the Batarang appeared on the floor next to her. She gathered it up, flipped it to its weighted end, channeled whatever willpower she had left in her mind, and threw. It connected with Mister Z's forearm just so, severing the tendons that gripped. He didn't grunt in pain in the slightest, but his hand opened, and Catwoman fell two feet down. She slumped over as she hit the ground, gasping and coughing. The ogre picked the annoying toothpick out of his arm and flung it away, then reached down to pick up the woman he had to finish killing.

"Catwoman!" Batgirl screamed, diving back into the fight.

It was a horrible idea. Batgirl threw a combo into the big man's stomach and kidney, a series of blows that'd leave a normal man flat on his back. It distracted Mister Z from Catwoman, but his response was simply to grunt and grab Batgirl in the single tightest grapple she'd ever experienced in her life.

Her stomach wrapped inside the ogre's elbow, Batgirl squeezed every muscle she had to prevent her torso from caving in outright. She tried to push his arm away, but it felt like the last rep of a ten thousand pound bench press. The black ghost hugged her again too, coaxing her to just sleep for a little while. Catwoman's staggered coughing grew quieter, and the ringing in Batgirl's ears grew louder. But suddenly, she noticed something — Mister Z's arm was very slippery.

No. Batgirl was slippery.

She blew out her breath and folded more tightly into the fat of his stomach, then pushed down, sliding neatly along an olive oil slickened path straight to the floor. Anticipating the ragdoll grab-and-smash she'd seen him use on Catwoman before, Batgirl tumbled quickly away, pulling a slippery ankle through his fingers as he grasped and missed, but just barely.

Keeping the momentum of the fight, Batgirl grabbed the massive dining chair she'd landed next to, tucked her feet into the seatback, and rolled to the ground until the solid wood chair was on her feet and she was flat under it. She pressed with all the strength in her legs and sent it overhead toward Mister Z, kipping to her feet and diving after it.

The massive statue of a man caught it one-handed, but didn't see Batgirl in the blind spot that the chair eclipsed. She kicked the wooden weight with both legs, and it smashed into the big man's leg. He staggered, if only a little. Batgirl flipped, and landed in a tight crouch.

"Cat!" she shouted. "Lumberjack!"

It was a code word that she and Robin used when it was time to take down a much larger, stronger opponent. Somehow, Catwoman understood. _Chop him down._

She grabbed a fallen chair of her own and leaned back, spinning it around her center of gravity like a throwing hammer. She let it fly at Mister Z's knee, and he took the blow. Again, he staggered.

Batgirl followed up with a diving kick to the same leg. Catwoman followed suit, sending a vicious snap kick past the man's massive, dangling member and straight into his groin. Batgirl kicked a pressure point on the inside of his thigh with enough force to send a punching bag mostly horizontal. Again, he staggered.

A synergy synchronized everything they did. Mister Z grasped and swung, one of the women dodged, and the other took advantage of the opening. Then, he grasped for the bee that had just stung him, only to get stung again from another angle. Joint strikes, push kicks, hammer blows. The ogre's swings came slower.

Finally, Catwoman dodged a slow grab, and grasped Z's arm in return, trying to pull him to the ground. Batgirl joined in, striking his knee and adding her own weight to the huge man's arm. Assisted by the force of his own clumsy swing, Z should have fallen over, but he was simply too strong. Batgirl screamed in rage as she climbed the man's arm like a fallen log. Jumping from atop the ogre's own shoulders, Batgirl turned all her force downard, and planted the elbow strike at his temple.

Down the monster went. And, out from under his massive foot, the notebook appeared on the floor.

Batgirl and Catwoman fell to their own exhausted, slumped crouches next to the unconscious body of their goliath. They both looked to the notebook, then to each other. An exploded apartment. Battered pride. Gangsters and whores. Shame and disgrace. Blood and broken bones. For all the trouble this small stack of paper had caused, Batgirl thought it should look bigger, or more important somehow. Diamond-encrusted, maybe. Something about how simple it was and how the secrets she lived and died on might be written inside flushed a chill over her skin.

"Take it," Catwoman said as she huffed with exhaustion and climbed slowly to her feet. "Just take it, you little tramp."

Batgirl did. It felt good to hold it — her odyssey was finally over. But the numbness of fear and exhaustion that was under everything now stole some of the joy. It'd have to be enough for her. That, and the fact that Catwoman had lost everything. Given the trial they'd been through together, Batgirl couldn't be totally numb toward the strange woman.

"You underestimated me," Batgirl proclaimed as she stood, considering the thief. Beyond the door, the sounds of panic and hustling bodies desperate to exit the building had blossomed. The natural consequences of crashing chandeliers and gunshots.

"Oh? I thought I _overestimated_ you, Kitten," Catwoman hissed. "That was a nice play. I just didn't think you were sick enough to pull it off."

"You were going to take the notebook either way and you know it," Batgirl accused. They stood on either side of the massive, fallen behemoth between them.

"I was trying to take down that little Mini-Godfather and have some fun with you doing it," Catwoman growled. "I had a plan, you know. At least, I did, until you ruined it all."

"Did that plan end with me hogtied on that table while you pranced out the door with the notebook and a bunch of money?"

"It ended with that smug little shit cut down another peg or two," Catwoman said, rolling her eyes and nodding as she considered Batgirl's words. "And yeah, _maybe_ the other thing, now that you mention it."

They moved together, stalking each other as they slowly maneuvered toward the door and the chaos beyond. In the distance, muted sirens wailed. "Looks like you lose, then."

"I was going to cut you in on the profits, you know," Catwoman boasted. "Especially after your little... _accidental excitement_. You certainly have a hair-trigger down there, don't you? Bet Bird-Boy loves all the squealing you make when he tickles your little kitty."

There she was — not the real Catwoman, but “Catwoman” the character. The real Catwoman had been the one who flashed rage when Marchetti had threatened them. The one who'd shared an unspoken vow of sorority against a room full of pimps and thugs. The one who'd looked betrayed when Batgirl had taken advantage of that and tricked her into almost doing something grotesque. The one who was shocked when Batgirl threw the Batarang and sprung the trap.

Catwoman — the masked thief — was true to her name. She clawed at vulnerabilities, dug at them until they were raw. She used her appearance to hamstring the emotions of others. And, of course, she stole everything from them while they were distracted, then left them empty and ashamed. But most importantly, she did it because that was her nature. She knew her strengths, and she used them to their fullest. Even though the understanding was worth absolutely nothing to a woman like her, Batgirl understood.

She couldn't hold it in: "I didn't want to do it, Catwoman. I mean that. But don't act like you can use me as bait and somehow win me over with it. I might look like another easy mark to you. Another puppet that dances the way you want if you pull the right strings. Think again."

"I did say I wanted to get to know you, Kitten," Catwoman growled. "Guess I did."

 _"I won't forget,"_ she added.

A groan of pain wailed from the direction of the chandelier and the crumpled wooden table. _"Help! Oh fuck, my leg! Shit, someone help me!"_ Anthony Marchetti moaned.

Catwoman smiled warmly as she considered the pile of rubble and the small, whiny voice beneath it. "I'm leaving now, Kitten," she proclaimed. "You can have that chance to kick my ass now, if you want. And I do mean: _a chance_ . Or, you can have _him_. Your call."

Batgirl looked to the door handle, then to Catwoman, then to the pile of rubble with the mewling, terrified voice of Anthony Marchetti. The red emergency lights pulsed softly, and Catwoman's smile sparkled in the dark every time the lights dimmed. The thought of dragging Marchetti out to a police cavalcade was a bit sweeter to her somehow. Batgirl picked the rubble.

"I'll find you," she warned as she turned and walked away, the notebook clutched tightly in her grasp.

"I'm counting on it, Kitten," Catwoman purred. She opened the door, and was gone.

Despite the fact that the red emergency lights were enough to see the room with, Batgirl keyed the night vision on her optics again. The white lenses were a fun ingredient in times like these. With a gentle jog and a leap, Batgirl was atop the broken table again, and she clambered over the bent, twisted chandelier. It crushed Marchetti a bit more as she added her weight to it, and he howled in pain. She smiled, and added a little more of her weight as she descended right on top of him, and keyed the voice distortion unit in her cowl for extra effect.

 **"Anthony Marchetti,"** she growled in a dark, inhuman voice.

His leg was pinned beneath the chandelier, crushed at the thigh, and Batgirl loomed over him like a gargoyle after a cursory scan to make sure he wasn't bleeding too badly internally. He screamed from a volatile mixture of fear and pain. _"Fuck! Oh shit, get the fuck away from me! What are yo—"_

 **"—A.K.A. 'Little Italy' Marchetti of the Guzzo crime family of Gotham,** she continued, repeating her speech from a time when she was weaker and smaller. **"Born February seventeenth, nineteen-eighty-six. Tonight was a test. You failed."**

 _"Ohmygodohmygod pleaseplease!"_ Marchetti begged pathetically.

Batgirl shut off the voice changer and let her tone seethe now, like the way it had when she was on her knees for him. "You tell anyone — any single person on this planet — that I was here tonight, and I will _obliterate you."_

"No no no!" Marchetti begged. "Of course! I seen nothin'! No, I-I—"

"—I could tear you apart right now," Batgirl interrupted. "But you have secrets. Things you don't want people to know. I'm going to look in places you don't want me to look. I'm going to find things you don't want me to find. Then, I'm going to show them to all the people you're hiding them from."

"No no no please, wait! Wait I'm — I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, I-I-I shouldn't have made you—"

"—And then?" Batgirl concluded, ignoring him. "Gotham City will rip you apart for me. Francesca Marinetti. Roman Sionis. _Sallie Guzzo._ "

Marchetti's eyes grew even wider at the sound of his uncle's name. "No! No no, don't — not Sal. Plea— _aah!"_

Batgirl cut him off by stomping her foot on the twisted metal pinning Marchetti's leg. "You'll beg me to turn you in. You'll beg for a trial. For prison. Or you'll beg Gotham City for mercy."

Marchetti started weeping openly. It was sad and pathetic, and Batgirl loved everything about it. She granted herself that joy and tried not to show the beaming rainbow she felt glowing in her soul. "Fucking please, no," he whimpered. "Please please no, please." Somehow, through the terror and pain, Batgirl found the man's eyes glancing down at her still-naked body. She stomped on the chandelier again, and Marchetti howled.

 _"Don't,"_ Batgirl threatened.

She wondered where to even begin with the disgusting little man. The women Marchetti had brought to his dinner party were all cowering in the corners of the room, balled up in fear and trying to ignore the horrid bat-creature threatening their master.

“None of you have anything to fear from me,” she announced to them. “Get up and evacuate with the rest of the others. I’m not here for you; I’m here for him. If you want this man in prison, you’ll help me when I come and find you. Go.” 

Quickly and quietly, they did. Some of them had already started hobbling to the door long before she was done. She’d need to follow up with these women later if she wanted enough evidence to put Marchetti away, but it was more symbolic of a show right now: this wasn’t Marchetti’s room anymore. It was Batgirl’s.

"What's it going to be, Marchetti?" she asked as the last woman whimpered and rushed through the doorway.

Marchetti cursed, hesitant to spill his secrets even with the spirit of doom literally looming over him. Despite not wanting to, Batgirl wondered for a moment what Marchetti was feeling. What must it feel like to be a man like that and fail? To be small and have nothing expected of you, to find some success, then to have it all stripped away by his own mistakes? Batgirl tried not to think of how many ways that part of his life, at least, overlapped with her own.

"Fuck," he whimpered. "Fine. The fuck do you wanna know?"

Batgirl keyed the voice recording element in her cowl as Marchetti got ready to kick down his own sandcastle and let it wash away in the waves. "Let's start with where you got these women from. Don't make me ask twice or I let this city strip your bones."

"Alright, fuck. _Fuck!_ It's... it's this Asian dude, from some fuckin' shithole country or another. Udon-something."

"Name," Batgirl warned.

 _"Oh fuck!"_ Marchetti whined — but, for once, Batgirl could tell it wasn't in fear of her. Marchetti looked at his hand as though he hadn't ever seen it before. "My ring. Where's my ring?"

Batgirl leaned on his leg, and he screamed. "Name. I can drag you to Sal Guzzo. Tonight."

He squealed as he cursed through the pain. "You can just cut my head off or drink my blood right now if I don't find this ring! _The Guzzo Family heirloom ring!_ Solid gold, four carats of diamonds! Fuck, he's gonna kill me anyway!"

Batgirl's eyes narrowed, and turned off the recorder. _Diamonds_ chilled her thighs for some reason. "What?"

"Oh, shit, I'm dead," Marchetti whined as he seemed to shut down. "I'm dead, I'm dead..."

"Ey, boass," a familiar voice grunted. Batgirl had once found the giant Mister Z curious, if not strangely endearing, but knowing what he was capable of brought her to a sharp fighting stance instinctively. He was harmless, for the moment, crumpled on the floor beside the table with a broken leg of his own. He lifted his hand. "Mine's... gone too, boass."

Batgirl focused the optics in her cowl, switching to something that would ping back solid colors for metal. The massive wrought iron chandelier beneath her was the most obvious glow. There were two guns on the floor, including the scattered parts of the one she'd stripped. She looked to Marchetti and Z's hands, and next to Denny, the bearded man who she'd taken down early on in the scramble. Their hands were dark: no rings. Each man Batgirl scanned was cold and blue in the optics; metal of any kind would have shown up white-hot. Batgirl keyed off the lenses and leapt down from the chandelier, her eyes searching not for metal anymore, but for meaning. A reason.

 _"Catwoman,"_ she whispered to herself.

The notebook.

She traced a finger over the silvery GCPD logo and opened the leather cover to reveal the first page, and she was mad at herself for being surprised that it was the only one with anything written on it. The rest of the pages were completely, utterly blank, their emptiness terrifying, like staring into a fog all over again. She moved close to one of the red emergency lights, and read the page:

> Big Guy:
> 
> If you're reading this, I probably just stole all your money.
> 
> Hopefully, I also stole all those nice rings you and your boys wear.
> 
> Sorry, not sorry. Hope you enjoyed the Kitty Cat Show.
> 
> Think of me when you rub that tiny little cannoli of yours.
> 
> Kitten: 
> 
> If you're reading this, I'm either dead or I'm not.
> 
> If I am, please pawn everything I own and get me a very nice funeral.
> 
> If I'm not, I'm probably getting the real notebook from the lobby.
> 
> I left it with the doorman. Race you there. 
> 
> Meow,
> 
> Cat 😼

Her hands were shaking by the time she was halfway done reading.

It was for nothing. The highrise explosion. The chase. The nakedness. The shame. The trap. All for nothing.

 _No,_ she thought as she scooped up her Batarang from the floor and dashed to the main hall. _Not for nothing. For a game. For Catwoman's game. This was all a game to her from the start._

Batgirl didn't see the crowds of naked bodies shouting and panicking as she ran through the building's large, open core. She felt dizzy and numb as she moved, like she was driving a machine shaped like her. Nobody truly saw her, either — everyone was moving on instinct now. Gunshots and crashing sounds. Danger.

But Batgirl wasn't frightened. She was angry. It was her blood, the juice that flowed through her muscles and propelled her forward. Then, another realization flared it hotter: Marchetti's private dining hall wasn't a closing room for a sale — it was a job. The rings were always Catwoman's original prize, or at least one of them. She seemed to live her life in one long, constant heist that always had an option for her to walk away with something. If she'd sold the notebook, she'd have an account full of cash. If not, she'd get the rings. If not the rings, she'd have leverage on Batgirl. If not leverage on Batgirl, then something else.

But that thought sprouted and grew in Batgirl’s mind. How exactly would Catwoman get leverage on Batgirl? Sure, she'd been there in the room with her, coercing her, seducing her into mock sex acts for everyone to see...

_For everyone to see._

Catwoman's smiling face appeared in a crowd of bodies huddled near one of the emergency exit paths where security was handing out blankets so people could step out into the cold Gotham night with something to cover themselves with. She smiled as their gazes met for perhaps the last time, then pointed two fingers at her own eyes, and then one straight up:

A security camera dome loomed overhead, like an iris jutting from the ceiling. The lobby had them; apparently the main hall did too. So, why not everywhere else? Batgirl’s blood turned to ice.

Everything that had happened in Marchetti's dining hall was recorded.

Batgirl thought the look on her face of shock and betrayal must have tasted just as sweet to Catwoman as the thief's own shocked gaze must have looked to her before. Her devilish cheshire smile said it all: _Either get the security footage, or get the notebook._

Catwoman blew a kiss, knowing which one Batgirl had to pick, and then disappeared forever through the dressing rooms that led to the lobby.

* * *

The sprint to the security room wasn't physically hard: even flowing against the traffic of naked bodies; even with the aches and bruises of combat; even with the burning shame of failure. But it was emotionally hard for Barbara. It wasn't the failure — that isn't an emotion. It was the rage. She had an unending font of it now, and most of it boiled over and seeped back into her own skin, leaving nowhere else to put it but in her own gut. She hated that she couldn't give any of it to Marchetti or Catwoman now in the form of an ass-kicking. She'd just have to beat herself up instead.

When she kicked open the door to the security room, she tried not to give the two men on the monitors got the worst of it. They were just doing their jobs, after all, even if they were doing so for Anthony Marchetti. But they probably didn't have any allegiances to keep, or any Guzzo rings to steal. So when she threw the Batarang at the fluorescent light overhead and it shattered, she tried to pull her punches. She could have easily filled her fists with all the anger she had and pounded both the men into piles of meat. She didn't. They had no reason to be thankful for that, either. Nothing that had happened was their fault.

As she pulled the minidisc recording of the last hour of footage from the club over the slumped, unconscious bodies of the security team, she tried not to smash it to bits in utter, total rage — it could have something valuable on it. Evidence to be used against Marchetti or Catwoman sometime later. But it was also an embarrassing, horrible thing to look at, like an award trophy given to only the dumbest, most gullible girl in the world. Why should it be shattered to bits for being a piece of plastic that had done its job? She tucked it into her cowl. Nothing that had happened was the minidisc's fault.

And, finally, when Barbara stumbled into the empty maintenance corridor outside the security office and found her feet had become heavy, and her lungs too small to breathe, she collapsed to the floor, and she finally cried as hard as she could. It came out as long stretches of breathless, quiet weeping punctuated by desperate, hopeless wails. Barbara realized it was the first time she'd had a moment alone in quite a while, and that it was her turn to feel now. Batgirl would have to sit in the corner of her mind and rage quietly for a minute instead.

Because everything that had happened tonight — literally all of it — was entirely, undeniably Barbara's fault. 

She’d never be the same again. Catwoman had made sure of that. Barbara had been the raging bull to Catwoman's matador, charging at a red cape dangled ever so provocatively. Catwoman had spun artfully out of the way at every charge and danced for the cheering crowd, never revealing the sword hidden behind her back until the final _coup de gras_. Sure, the bull was big and dangerous and strong, but it was dumb and drugged with rage. And just like a bull in the arena, a backstab was all Barbara ever had waiting for her in that room.

Underneath it all was the fact that Barbara had essentially stolen the notebook from her father to begin with, and then a better thief had simply stolen it from her. _'I'm a public menace, you're a public menace,'_ Catwoman's voice echoed in her mind. Perhaps they weren't so different. But at least Catwoman was powerful enough — sexy enough — to control a room full of people without throwing a single punch, or making a single threat. At least Catwoman hadn't failed everyone who was counting on her.

"Stupid, Barbara," she sobbed to herself. "Stupid, stupid, stupid."

 _"Robin to Batgirl,"_ Dick's voice sounded from her ear. It made her sob even more, and she had to let him say it a few more times before she could gather the courage to speak. She tried to clear her waterlogged nose so she wouldn't sound so pathetic.

"Batgirl here," Barbara said. She opened her eyes and willed the tears to stop. They did.

 _"Thank God!"_ Dick whispered under his breath. _"I amped our comms array. What's your status? Cops are out in force. I'm seeing people evacuating."_

Nothing left to do but take ownership. "Catwoman... surprised me. She got away."

 _"Roger that,"_ Dick replied with the voice of someone hearing a tactical consequence that needed a response, and not a failure of a teammate who'd blown a mission. _"What's her vector?"_

"She's in the crowd somewhere," Batgirl replied honestly. "Disrobed. Probably unmasked. She'll move out through the lobby. Keep your eyes on the front door."

And then, the most terrifying voice she'd ever heard spoke in a low, calm tone.

"I've got eyes on the front," Batman said. "Evac. That's an order."

Barbara shivered uncontrollably, and her breathing came out in nervous dry heaves — he was here. The failure was official, now. This was the end of it all. With the notebook and Catwoman in the wind, she'd not only left both dad and Bruce in danger, she’d made a mess of it. Barbara being Batgirl was a poison in their veins. She tried to flex her muscles, to stop herself from shaking, to stem the fear in her voice.

"Roger that," Batgirl said.

The dressing room was colder than she remembered, and Barbara felt like a death row prisoner waiting for sentencing. Batman's voice in her ear was the sound of footsteps stalking down the hall, guards ready to take her to the execution chamber. The irony of her sneaking back there without being seen wasn't lost on her. What kind of inmate wanted to sneak back into her cell?

She peeled out a few more disposable washcloths and smeared away as much of the olive oil from her body as she could before she opened the locked garment closet. Feeling the Batsuit against her skin again was a small blessing. It zipped itself on over her body with the press of a button, and hugged her tightly, padding the bruises she'd taken — covering at least some of the shame. As she looked in the mirror to make sure her eyes weren't too red from weeping, she felt like she didn't deserve walking in Batgirl's skin anymore. If Batgirl was a spirit, some disembodied phantasm that shared space with her person, then she didn't deserve it after tonight. Batman probably agreed. Maybe Robin would, too.

 _Stop it. No time for that now,_ Barbara thought. As the psychology of everyone who'd failed played out in her mind — denial ending with acceptance — she checked herself one last time in the mirror, and strode toward the lobby.

Her belt and Batclaw were still in the locked cabinet she'd left them in, to her surprise. Nothing looked tampered with, and no items were out of place. If the lobby concierge was in on it all, he at least wasn't interested in stealth combat gear. Strangely, she found herself making an alibi for him in her mind; again, none of this was anyone else's fault. It was much more likely that Catwoman either lied and never hid the notebook with him at all, or that she hid it without him knowing. She decided it wasn't worth questioning him and shaming herself even further.

Barbara slinked back through the emptied main hall and into the maintenance corridors that held the emergency stairways, and found one that led to the building's lungs. They'd once breathed steam onto the rooftop battleground she'd shared with Catwoman, the first place she'd made a stupid mistake. There was no taste of berries on her lips anymore, but she remembered it as she burned through a massive padlock with a mini-torch from her belt and snuck carefully out onto the roof.

_"Robin to Batgirl; got eyes on you. Check your ten."_

On the adjacent, higher rooftop that Barbara had initially tried to ambush Catwoman from — another failure — two familiar silhouettes waited. Nobody else would notice them unless they were eagle-eyed and knew exactly what to look for: one was shorter, tighter, and crouched down small; the other was long and menacing, and seemed to have wings that dripped over the edges of the building.

"Copy," Batgirl said. She pulled her Batclaw and zipped to them.

 _"Hurry up,"_ Robin said as the wind whistled past her. She hated the idea of seeing him, of looking into his eyes after everything she'd done. It wasn't the same with Bruce, since she was always afraid of looking at him. But then, she was next to them anyway: her team, her family. The people she'd let down. It didn't matter what they were called anymore, but she certainly wouldn't be called Batgirl for much longer.

"Hey Babs," Dick said as he smiled. She wanted so badly to hug him, and also be a million miles away from him. "You okay?"

"Hey. Yeah," she lied. "Couple bruises. Concussion, maybe. The usual." He put his hand on her shoulder for a moment, and she enjoyed what she could of it.

"It's been a rough night," Dick said, begging the question.

"I'm fine," Barbara replied.

Batman didn't look at her — his eyes were buried in his tech binoculars, studying the scene below. It always struck Barbara how much bigger and scarier Bruce was when he was suited up. He was big and athletic, but the armor seemed to give him more mass somehow, if substance could be made out of shadows. Barbara knew it was what he was counting on to be the monster of Gotham's night. She just wished she wasn't so afraid of monsters right now.

He looked to her, as if he could hear her thinking about him. "You sure?"

"Yes," Batgirl lied.

He studied her for a moment, probably saw clear through the lie, then pocketed the thought and looked back through the scope. "Alfred will check you both back at the cave," he stated in his deep, calm baritone. It wasn't a question.

"Good work, Batgirl," he added.

Barbara's eyes narrowed. This wasn't the reception she'd expected from either of them. She was such a complete, utter fuck-up. Didn't they know? Weren't they ashamed? But then, how could they know? But then again, wasn't it obvious?

"I... didn't do much," Barbara mumbled.

"You did enough," Dick added. Then: "They got her."

"What?"

"Catwoman," Dick said, as though it were obvious. “They got her.”

Dick handed her his binoculars. She accepted, and gritted her teeth to keep her hands from shaking as she gazed into the scope.

"Down below the second squad car, and off to the left about six meters," Batman said as he glared through his own scope as well. Barbara took in all of the scenes on the street below.

Anthony Marchetti was laid out on a stretcher, drunk on pain meds and confusion. His guardian ogre, Mister Z, was being brought out on an improvised set of stretchers laced together. He looked like he had at least four times the mass that was allowed in the ambulance let alone on the rolling beds.

The lobby concierge was there, helping with blankets and evacuation, dignified as ever, and accepting questions from two detectives as he did. His two front door guards had given their jackets to two women, and were helping out as well. All of them breathed smoke from their mouths as they spoke, a reminder of how bitterly cold the night was.

And finally, being dragged toward a squad car, clearly against her will, was a woman. She had short black hair framing a flushed, fearful expression, and was wearing a blanket to hide her nakedness. One of the cops next to her held a familiar cat mask in his hand; two others restrained her forcefully by the armpits as she fought and kicked the whole way. If she was pretty, Barbara couldn't see it through the utter, unbridled terror twisting her face as she was fed to the police car's open door like it was a vicious, hungry maw. In she went anyway, and it swallowed her whole.

"Oh, right," Barbara mumbled, trying to mask the disbelief in her voice. An ache in her chest swelled as she lowered the binoculars. "They got her."


	7. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barbara deals with the aftermath of Catwoman's plot

_**Four Days Later** _

> "Thanks for joining us on this Wednesday evening, I'm Trent Irving."
> 
> "And I'm Sarah Allister. Our top story today: Gotham City district attorney Carl Finch announced limited details on a conviction for the shooting at a private club in Old Town Gotham last week that ended with the destruction of a dining room and a late-night emergency evacuation. We now know a twenty-seven year old woman has been held by police in connection to the shooting; the suspect will not be named until her arraignment next week. Eight were injured and three were wounded in the panic, including the club's owner, Anthony Marchetti, who suffered a broken tibia. All are in stable condition.`
> 
> "Police are still investigating if this incident was related to the destruction of Marchetti's luxury highrise apartment downtown earlier during the same night. Gotham City Police Commissioner James Gordon says the authorities are considering the explosion an accident, and not an act of terrorism. Fire Department investigators confirmed that the explosion was triggered by a sudden gas leak that scattered debris and broken glass from the 30th floor apartment, miraculously resulting in no casualties and only minor injuries to pedestrians below.
> 
> _"I was... I was just walking with my sister then... blam!... everyone's running, we duck under... under that awning right there. Then this car, out of nowhe—"_ _  
> _

The news feed on the massive array of screens in the cave beneath Wayne Manor froze as Batman noticed Barbara behind him somehow and paused the footage. It unnerved her how easily he could sense her presence even when she was trying to be quiet. The woman on the screen being interviewed was frozen in the middle of a wild gesture, her arms pantomiming the chaos from that night.

"Barbara. Take a look at this," Batman said. His deep baritone seemed to echo forever all around them. Barbara swallowed and stepped closer as he touched a few controls. The screen went black for a moment, then blinked back to life in a different form.

Now, on the screens, a woman sat handcuffed to an interrogation room table; GCPD Precinct 14, Barbara thought. Old Town Gotham. She was beautiful, even with worn-out, dry makeup. Her body language was squirrely and nervous beneath a facade of calm disinterest. A man's voice spoke calmly to her, determined to chip away at that facade.

> "State your name, please?"
> 
> “For the last time: Catwoman.”
> 
> “...Your legal name, miss?”
> 
> "Lillian Portola."
> 
> "Miss Portola, we're going to ask you some questions. Just want to make sure you und—"
> 
> "—You've asked me _a thousand questions_. You don't have to explain the concept of what a question is to me anymore, thanks."
> 
> "Tell me about the nature of the social club, please."
> 
> "God, I've told you a dozen times now. You get off on hearing about this or something? You take these recordings home and play with yourself while the wife's asleep?"
> 
> "We're just trying to get the facts straight, Miss Portola."
> 
> "It's a sex club. People go inside and fuck. Have a nice day."
> 
> "Can you elaborate?"
> 
> "Well, detective, when a boy and a girl really like each other, his penis gets really hard, and he sticks it in her vagi—"

"That's not her," Barbara interrupted.

Batman didn't look back at her as he froze the video feed of the woman. A phantom sound echoed from the depths of the cave. It made everything seem a little darker, and made Barbara feel a little smaller. The system of subterranean caverns was massive and incredibly deep, and the spotlights still left everything too dark to see the ceiling. They were alone on a sea of shadows, stranded on a little island lit by an artificial sun.

"Why not," Batman both said and asked.

She strode forward and squinted at the still image of Lillian Portola, the newly unmasked Catwoman.

"The face... is a near match. Close, but not the same," Barbara began. "Catwoman is flippant and... well, _catty_ , but... the voice is off as well. No: the _speech_. The cadence of her voice. The real Catwoman pronounces her _"ah's"_ a bit more too, like she's affecting a Mid-Atlantic accent or something. This woman moves differently... shoulders stay too far back. Posture is too stiff. She’s putting on a show of a person putting on a show."

"The computer agrees with you," Batman said. "We don't have a lot of biometric data on Catwoman. Cowl recordings, low-res security footage. Enough to train the gait recognition algorithm. It's only forty percent confident."

Barbara knew her eye was just as sharp as any algorithm. She'd trained it in the most up-close and personal circumstances possible, after all. But the computer was Batman's many-eyed lens into the world at large — his oracle, of sorts. It always felt like the screens and the knowledge they held were only meant for him, and they always held more secrets than anyone else could ever know. Barbara was just an annoying child looking over her father's shoulder as he worked. And, just like a busy father, she hadn't seen him in days. She knew why, though, and she hated the way that thought made her feel.

Barbara squinted for a moment, wondering: "How'd you get this?"

"Jim," Batman stated. "They've been trying to get a solid confession out of her for days. She wouldn't say anything concrete. He asked for my help."

"How long did it take?" Barbara asked, smiling a bit. She fantasized that she was wrong, that maybe this Lillian Portola really was Catwoman, and imagined the shock in her eyes as a demon appeared in the dark interrogation room next to her instead of a police detective.

"Not long," Batman said, still as a statue in his chair. His cowl was off, but the armor was on, and his steely blue eyes were cold and emotionless as the computer. The man had thousands of dollars worth of comfortable suits and loungewear in a half dozen closets upstairs, but he preferred to wear his bat-themed battle armor on his downtime. It didn’t make him easier to talk to.

"What'd she tell you?" Barbara asked.

"You tell me,” he answered. Batman liked to do these sorts of deductive exercises with her. Things to help Barbara keep her detective senses sharp, or make them sharper.

"You dropped a detail about something from one of your encounters with her before," Barbara said. "Or maybe a few details: one true, two false. She took one of the false ones, or misspoke the real one."

"Go on," Batman said.

"She... swapped masks with the real Catwoman on the night of the job. Catwoman made a deal with her to... no. Catwoman blackmailed her into doing it?"

Batman finally turned his gaze to hers. The light framed his face, and for a moment, he looked gentle. He waited: _Which is it?_ his eyes said.

"A little bit of both. She's a pathological liar," Barbara answered. "One of those people who confesses to a crime just for the celebrity. But Catwoman wouldn't leave something like this to chance. Lillian might like lying to police to act like Catwoman, but she won't take hard prison time for her. Catwoman has to have leverage on her."

Batman nodded. "I couldn't get her to give up that part, so it must be something important. If Lillian is compromised, Catwoman might pull the trigger if she gets released. More incentive for her to lie, and keep lying. Jim's holding on to her for now with a public mayhem charge. Won't last for long. But I've got no leads."

Barbara swallowed. He might have some leads if Batgirl hadn't tried running headlong into a crime scene with her shoelaces tied together. A familiar ball of lead grew heavier in her stomach. "Oh. Yeah."

He turned his body to her, now. The chair hissed quietly as it spun. He was calm and relaxed, and the unreadable stillness in his body language made Barbara want to step away. "I'm just going over the footage, trying to see if I missed something. I've been hunting down Catwoman's contacts, scraping over her safehouses. Anything you can offer would help."

"I don't know," Barbara sighed, sensing where the conversation was going. "I'm... I'm sorry."

Quietly, Batman pushed a glowing key on the interface panel. A familiar pair of voices spoke over a slight hiss of static. The first was her own.

> "No, you're right. You're right. About everything."
> 
> "Batgirl?"
> 
> "The notebook is my... is Police Commissioner Gordon's."
> 
> "Okay."
> 
> "You know, the Commissioner Gordon with the big, glowing signal? The one of this symbol that we all wear? Who likes to meet with Batman? And share notes about his current investigations?"
> 
> "Oh. You mean the Batman who makes a lifestyle of being ten steps ahead of everyone? And who would suddenly be ten steps behind everyone if a notebook full of his plans with the police commissioner got out?"*
> 
> "...Yeah, that's the guy!"
> 
> "How'd Catwoman get—"

By the end of it, Barbara's jaw muscles were aching. Her chin jutted out as she pursed her lips and blinked back tears. And all of a sudden, it was day one again. She'd just been standing at Marchetti's table. She'd just watched Catwoman point at the security camera in the lobby. She'd just stumbled up to the roof after weeping like a child. She'd just failed her mentor.

"I..." she began, her hesitation likely telling him as much as her words. "I know I don't... I mean—"

"—The notebook is encrypted," Bruce said.

Barbara didn't remember him standing up; she didn't remember him putting his hands on her shoulders. She couldn't form words for a long space of moments. Her eyes were drawn to his for a moment; he'd handed her the notebook. No: another notebook. An old copy, one he'd used with her father another time. She opened it, and almost expected to find another note from Catwoman inside.

There were words, yes. Notes. But they were jumbled and mixed, like English written in another alphabet. None of it made any sense.

"I... what? I don't... what..."

"Jim... your father... we agreed that passing notes electronically was risky. Things could be digitally intercepted, and the GCPD still has some bad cops we haven't identified yet. So, paper notebooks only. Obviously that's not safe either. Jim came up with the idea for a cipher. Simple and clever. Regular rotation for a new one. Anyone who managed to get a notebook would have nothing. With the most recent cipher, only a few pages would be valuable."

"So... Catwoman has nothing," Barbara said.

Bruce nodded. "A meaningless stack of paper."

Barbara nodded as well. It was a failure, and not a failure.

"I'm sorry we haven't talked about it," Bruce continued. "I've been busy as Batman these past few nights. Had to finish up damage control. Check off my list of loose ends. Lillian is on that list."

"I know," Barbara whispered. "I understand."

"The notebook is not, Barbara," he said, his voice full of unexpected understanding and warmth. "We're safe. _Jim is safe."_

"Okay," she said, trying not to whimper. "Okay." She wanted to fall into his arms; she wanted to fall onto the floor. Or, better yet, to plummet into the darkest recesses of the cave and be swallowed by the void.

"Everything else I have on that list is tied to you," Batman said plainly, letting his hands leave a ghost of warmth on her shoulders. Barbara only nodded in response, focusing all her energies to holding the pain inside herself, so he continued.

"Here's what I know, Barbara," he began. He didn't speak at length often, so when he had a long speech prepared, it was terribly unsettling.

"I know why you went after the notebook. I even know why you wanted to go after it solo, even after being warned how dangerous Catwoman is. It's because you thought your team was under an imminent threat. You made a call. It was the wrong call, but you made it to save your team. Part of the fault was not knowing that Catwoman was counting on that."

Barbara nodded. She knew that Bruce was, before all else, a tactician. If he hadn't listened to the audio of that night and gone over all the angles — how and why Catwoman acted, how she and Dick had responded — he wouldn't be the Batman. She kept her eyes on his and took her lumps.

"I know you ran a mostly clean op... right up to the point where you stepped on Catwoman's hook. I know you and Dick worked the evidence. But I know that Catwoman had you from the start. I know she wanted you to chase her without having you realize you weren't getting any closer to her. That every step you took was on a treadmill."

Barbara's eyebrows lowered a bit, heavy from the shame and guilt until she forced them back up to his own. _Eyes up,_ she heard his voice say in her head. He didn't work with sad, whiny girls. He worked with soldiers.

"Yes, sir," she said.

"I also know what kind of club Anthony Marchetti was running," Bruce said calmly. "It was a sex club, more or less."

Barbara wanted to sigh, deeply and with her entire body. To breathe all the air out of her until she was nothing, like an empty balloon. Bruce pushed another button on the computer's multi-touch interface panel.

On the screen, Catwoman sauntered into the lobby of the Gotham City Hedonist Society. She reached out her hand to the concierge, who kissed it as though she were a duchess. They spoke for a moment, and he produced a note card and a pen for her to write with as she flirted with one of the doormen. The man took the note, sealed it, and had his guards usher Catwoman into the dressing room. There were multiple points where her hands weren't quite visible. Where she might have concealed the notebook behind the concierge desk or with one of the doormen. Or, where she might not have at all.

Then, blurring, ghostly motions as everyone's body language grew terse and quick: fast forwarding. Barbara watched the timecode increase by four minutes before Batgirl burst into the lobby, clutching her cape tight as the speed of the video cooled to a slightly more normal rate. She mouthed words to the concierge — there was no audio — and looked threateningly at the guards. She laughed incredulously as he pointed at the sign. He drew up the phone, and put it down as she urged him not to dial it. Then, she went through the door. The screen went black.

"I also know that, when it comes to criminals like Catwoman, that after _'The Red Carpet'_ eventually you reach _'The Stage'_ ," Bruce said. "You remember?" Barbara nodded.

"I know this was Catwoman's _'Stage'_ for you, Barbara," he said, the finality of the moment drawing near in his words. "But the only thing I don't know is what happened after you went inside."

Barbara wondered if she looked terrified or secretive. It was probably both. She knew she couldn't hide the expression on her face from him either way, even with her best poker face let alone the trembling mask of emotion she wore now, so she just stared and breathed.

"I've got nothing on whatever went on for the next hour inside the building. This lobby footage was all they had. Marchetti's security system isn't WayneTech, so no backdoor or cloud backups. It's an old minidisc system, and the disc from that hour inside the club is missing. Now, I have only two questions to ask you, and I need you to answer truthfully. You did everything you did to protect your team that night. I need you to do that again now."

Barbara's body was telling her to cry, but it was as though the plumbing to her eyes was disconnected suddenly as the moment of truth arrived. She was numb. Empty.

"Yes, sir," she said.

"Do you have the disc?" Bruce asked.

Barbara nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Good," he said. "I'm guessing you got it instead of tracking Catwoman as she escaped because you didn't want to compromise yourself, or the team. You did the right thing."

He added: "Have Alfred collect it and bring it to me, please."

Barbara pursed her lips, compressed the twisting bile in her stomach, and nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Barbara," he began carefully. "You have my word that I will not look at it under any circumstances."

She didn't realize her eyes were staring at the floor until she looked up at him and saw the honesty in his gaze. It surprised her, that caring, concerned look in his eyes, and she must have turned her head like a confused puppy. "I'll transcode it to an encrypted file for your eyes only, destroy the disc, and ask you to look at it when you're ready. That leads me to my next question, which I think we both know the answer to:"

"Are you okay?" Bruce asked. His eyes were sad and sincere.

The word 'yes' hung at the back of her throat, another drop of lead to add to the ball in her stomach. Barbara was self-aware enough to know that the fact it was there in her gut was enough. It would be so easy, though. _Yes, I'm fine. Ready for duty._

"No," Barbara said.

Bruce nodded for a long time. He seemed disturbed, like he wanted to punch something for a moment but didn't. Then, he calmed, and nodded again. He asked for her hands, and she offered them to him. They were warm somehow, despite the coldness in the cave.

"Did she hurt you?" he asked in earnest. Then, almost threateningly: _"Did anyone hurt you."_

Barbara thought, but only for a very short moment. "No," she said. "I'm... it wasn't like that, really."

Bruce sighed, and nodded with a stiff lip. The other perspective of that night revealed itself to Barbara suddenly: Bruce Wayne couldn't forgive himself if he lost James Gordon's daughter in some gangster's sex den. That was what this was.

And, that made it so that what happened next didn't come as a surprise.

"You know that either way, you're off-duty, indefinitely," Bruce said.

Barbara nodded. It made sense. And, it made the soles of her feet tingle like they were on fire. It was a fire she'd earned, in any case.

"If you're not hurt, but you're not well, then..." Bruce stumbled over the words for a moment. It was very human, for the Batman. "I can't ask you what happened inside. That's not the kind of thing... that you should talk to someone like me about."

“Someone like you?” Barbara asked.

He let her hands go, and tapped another sequence into the computer. A picture of a beautiful woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and a happy, professional smile appeared, her contact information listed to the side of her image. The entire thing shrank to the size of a card, and was whisked away to an icon of a yellow Bat-symbol with the letters _'BG'_ inside.

"I just sent you the info to a friend of mine," Bruce began. "Dinah. Lives across town, but she's worth the trip. Her parents are cops, too. She's got a good ear."

Barbara squinted and curled a corner of her mouth. She suddenly felt like she was listening to one of her father's lectures. "You're sending me to a shrink?" she asked.

 _"A friend,"_ Bruce corrected. "Someone a bit more... _feminine_ than me."

"Ah," Barbara's inner and outer voice said in sync — Bruce didn’t know what had happened to Barbara in that room, and he didn’t want to. Could he actually be as nervous about this as she was?

"Just... promise me you won't keep this inside, Barbara," Bruce said, and a seriousness chilled his tone. "Whatever happened in there... is yours. But you should talk to someone. Believe me when I say that holding something inside you forever... it doesn't make you get better. It makes you get worse."

Barbara's eyebrows wrinkled as she considered the man. Sometimes, he was even more mysterious as Bruce Wayne than he was as Batman. "Okay," she said.

"Call. Make an appointment, tomorrow if she's free. If you decide you don't like her, we'll find someone else," Bruce said. "But I can't have you in the field if you're not well."

"I know," Barbara said.

"Good," Bruce concluded.

He squeezed her hands one last time, and they parted ways quietly, as they almost always did. But the exchange left her wondering for quite a while whether it was Batman or Bruce she'd actually been talking to. Batman was dark and frightening; Bruce, just a little bit less so. There was also the character of "Bruce Wayne" that he put on for social gatherings and fundraisers; that was the smiling, empty-headed bachelor with more bank account balance than sense. What he'd shown her just now wasn't any of those images of him. Maybe it was another layer to the man. One that he didn't show to anyone unless it was important.

Striding toward the powerlift that would take her back to ground level, Barbara stole one last look at the Batgirl suit and said her silent goodbye. It hung quietly in its clear locker, and even though the mask's eyes were empty and dark, they seemed to follow her as she passed. Barbara searched for meaning in those eyes, but looked away before she could find any.

* * *

Dinah, whoever she was, seemed like a nice woman. She had a very warm, professional voice. Barbara didn't know how close Dinah was, and so she'd told her over the phone that she needed someone to talk to about "police family stuff," and was given a time at a coffee shop next week. Then, when Dinah asked who had referred her and Barbara named their mutual night-stalking friend, that appointment was eagerly moved to the first thing in the morning at Dinah's loft.

The bed in Barbara's own guest room at Wayne Manor was a blessing. When she'd first been brought into the fold, Barbara remembered wondering at first if the massive, multi-bedroom sprawl was just a barracks for dozens of Bat-soldiers that Bruce was housing right under Gotham City's nose. He wasn't — it was only a dark, quiet house for just such a man. And, for the moment, that suited Barbara just fine. She spread her arms and legs wide and stared at the ceiling above the four poster bed until she drifted off for a nap. The dark, dreamless sleep held her like an old friend, until the knocking at the door separated them.

"I thought a bit of dinner might be helpful, if not satiating, Master Barbara," Alfred announced in his erudite accent as Barbara peeked at him around the edge of the door. She was expecting Dick to come by and try to console him eventually, or this new Bruce to come and unsettle her with his warm demeanor. She was glad to be wrong.

"Sure, Alfred," she said, opening the door for him. "Thank you. You... you shouldn't have."

He entered, and set a large, covered silver platter on a table in the tremendous bedroom. "Oh, please do not mistake my kind offers for _requests_ , Master Barbara," he said as he walked. "You will eat, now. Starved guests reflect poorly on me as a butler."

"You're the boss," Barbara said through pursed lips.

"Master Bruce has provided the white sedan for your use this week in visiting with Master Dinah," he added. "Do bring it back in, at most, one piece." Alfred placed the keys aside the dinner tray, and turned to leave, sensing Barbara's need for quiet privacy. She really would miss him the most. But a corner of her mouth wrinkled in disappointment — she wasn't surprised at the car she'd been allowed to borrow, but it never hurt to ask for something more.

"I was really hoping for the convertible. Can you ask him for that black one?" she begged. "Tell him... it's for my self-care? Convertibles with twelve cylinders are really therapeutic."

"Surely it is surprising that the world's most secretive man has trust issues in regards to his sportscars," Alfred explained dryly, "but nonetheless, the white sedan awaits."

Bruce, of course, had probably known that question would come up. Barbara smiled, her lips squeezed tight to avoid laughing outright. Alfred mirrored with, perhaps, a fraction of the smile. Maybe, right now at least, dry British cynicism was better therapy than a coastline drive in a convertible.

She hugged the wry old man, and he hugged back. "Thanks, Alfred. I'll miss you. And... yeah. I'll be back soon."

"See to it that you are, Master Barbara," he said, nodding. "This ghastly old house has a wreak of testosterone about it. There's not been a woman's touch here in far too long. Ring down to the kitchen if you have need of me." He smirked, and left quietly.

Barbara may have spent twenty minutes in the shower, or twenty hours. She wasn't sure what the water system for a mansion looked like, but she stayed there soaking in the heat and the steam until she was sure there would be no more hot water left in the whole house if she kept going. But it was necessary, she thought, to hold some sort of ceremony to commemorate Batgirl's death, or at least her long hibernation in the cave. She wasn't sure how long Bruce would keep her from putting the armor on again; she wasn't sure if she deserved it at all. It should have been a shameful thought, but it felt strangely like a lifted weight. There was a sureness, also, that what Bruce told her wasn’t wrong: Barbara had to get her head right if Batgirl was going to exist again. And Barbara needed it first, even if Batgirl did too. Because for now, Batgirl was gone; Barbara was all that remained. That rebirth deserved a baptism of some kind, and a very long, very hot shower worked just fine.

But no matter how many showers Barbara took, she couldn't seem to wash away the thought of everything that had happened with Catwoman. It was more than just the nagging sensation that she couldn't get the smell of olive oil out of her skin: Catwoman was, at best, an unsolved mystery. For one, they still didn't know who she really was, despite the dark-haired, green-eyed decoy she'd left them at the Old Town precinct. But there was something deeper than that — even if they knew Catwoman's name, even if they'd put her behind bars, Barbara still wouldn't know _who she was_.

Was she the Catwoman who brought Barbara in that night to help take down Anthony Marchetti? She'd probably stolen something important from his apartment before she'd blown it up both to sabotage his operation and to spite him. Barbara remembered the surprise, the dizzying confusion at finding her own Batarang pressed between their naked bodies: _'Be ready with the throwing knife.'_ Then, the next twist of confusion as she put on a sex show in front of Marchetti and his men, featuring the two of them and everything but the sex. Or was it sex? Barbara remembered how willing Catwoman's lips were, how her touch was anything but fake. She remembered how _'Play along'_ and _'Have fun with it'_ were Catwoman's flirtatious mantras throughout the whole episode. And, she remembered how the unmistakable guilt in Catwoman's eyes glistened with the realization that she'd made Barbara orgasm in front of everyone. Then, the burning fire of betrayal in her eyes when Barbara stopped playing by her rules. The hate that smoldered even deeper after she saved the thief from Marchetti's massive, beastly enforcer. The spiteful revenge that burned even brighter as Catwoman pointed at the security camera in the main hall.

She saw that hate and that vengeance, and remembered the other side of the coin: she could also be the Catwoman who blew up Marchetti's apartment with Robin inside, and let them keep the assumption that the apartment was hers. She needed a scapegoat at best, and a dead scapegoat otherwise. Something that would deflect Marchetti later on to point his vengeance towards Batman's people instead of just Catwoman. And, of course, she'd stolen her father's notebook, used the explosion to isolate Barbara, and dangled the notebook as bait. Then, Catwoman had brought Batgirl somewhere that she knew would mortify and humiliate her; regardless of all the other things, that had worked very well. Batgirl had stripped naked in front of a bunch of Gotham City gangsters and debased herself like one of his trafficked women at an audition. And Catwoman, amongst all the things she had to gain from Marchetti's loss, had made sure that Batgirl's shame was in her loot bag no matter what. Though it had taken Barbara a lot of thinking to cleanse her mind of that failure, it was forever stolen, and she would never have it back.

"So which one were you?" Barbara whispered to the water. Catwoman was both, and perhaps she was neither — even Bruce had a face Barbara hadn't seen until now.

The food Alfred had left was still covered in its silver platter, only now it was tepid and sweaty. She took a bite of the carefully-prepared pasta inside anyway, licking the sauce from her fingertips; his food was always delicious, even an hour or a day later. It deserved better than to be forgotten.

Barbara rolled her eyes and savored the taste as she threw her towel aside onto the bed and gathered lotion into her hand, spreading a thin coat all over her skin. The cool cream felt good after the hot rainstorm she'd stood in for who knows how long. Barbara was so relaxed that she didn't notice the door was open until the keys clanked onto the table next to the tray Alfred had left.

Dick Grayson had taken four steps into the room before he realized it wasn't his. "Whoa, Barb! Uh, sorry, damn it wrong room—"

"—Dick! Oh, no no, you're okay!" she said, scampering. The body towel wasn't nearby, so her hands flashed to cover her modesty as the other towel wrapped around her long red hair threatened to fall over. Then, it did.

"Sorry!" Dick said several dozen times. He'd averted his eyes and made a screen out of his hand for good measure. He stumbled back toward the door, keeping the palm next to his eyes even though his back was to her.

It wasn't the first time one of them had made the mistake of walking into the wrong room; the hallways of Wayne Manor were labyrinthine, and the doors all looked very similar. They roomed next to each other, just in case one had to wake the other for patrols or the like, so it happened somewhat often. Never like this, though.

"So sorry!" Dick said, averting his eyes as he backpedaled, "I'll just... yeah. Goodnight—"

"—your keys. Don't forget your—"

"—right, sorry. Wow, what am I even—"

Barbara wasn't sure when the decision was made, or even if she'd made one. It wasn't something that had a cause and effect that way, at least not directly. She looked him over, and thought he looked tall and very handsome in his street clothes. His forearms flexed as he grabbed his keys from the table, and Barbara bit her lip more tightly than she wanted to. She saw his matted helmet hair and the motorcycle keys, wondered where he'd been riding that night, and wished she'd been with him, her chest squeezed into his back muscles as the motorcycle's engine growled beneath them.

"Dick?" Barbara said. "Wait!"

"Yeah?"

Barbara's arm was folded across her chest, covering as much of herself as she could, but she loosened her hold. The undersides of her breasts started to swell beneath, like droplets on a cold glass growing heavier, fuller. Her opposite hand was cupped tightly over her groin, and she was hunched over in embarrassment; but then, she wasn't. She pulled her hand away as she spread her stance a bit and cocked her hip to the side, offering him a better view. Devilish eyes gazed at him from under her eyelids, and she whipped her wet hair over her shoulders as if trying to reveal more of her body for him.

Most importantly, Barbara felt overjoyed. Glad that there was no shame. That all of it was terrifying, but in a good way, like the crest of a rollercoaster.

The silence between them lasted too long, and Dick turned his head until his eyes could see past the screen he'd made out of his palm. When he did, his jaw loosened a bit, and his hand went limp as it slowly floated down like a feather. His body language melted into relaxation, and the door quietly drifted shut behind him. Dick stared at Barbara from across the table where Alfred's food tray sat, and she stared right back, making sure she had his full attention.

Then, she smiled as she let her breasts slowly slide all the way out from under her forearm.

"Don't go, Dick," Barbara purred.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to u/Dwarfinator1 for their prompt on the DirtyWritingPrompts subreddit which led me down this road.
> 
> If there's interest in follow-up stories to my little version of the Bat-family, let me know. Thanks for reading. Please do leave kudos or a comment if you enjoyed... positive words really do keep me going.


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